A veteran teacher gives an "inside" view of the lives of juveniles sentenced as adults
David Chura taught high school in a New York county penitentiary for ten years--five days a week, seven hours a day. In these pages, he""gives a face to a population regularly demonized and reduced to statistics""by the mainstream media. Through language marked by both the grit of the street and the expansiveness of poetry, the stories of these young people break down the di-visions we so easily erect between us and them, the keepers and the kept--and call into question the increasing practice of sentencing juveniles as adults.

At a time when problems of crime and antisocial behaviour stimulate debate on big society solutions, this book provides an exceptional means of tracing a line of response which began at the end of the 18th century. Nipping Crime in the Bud explores the origins and development of the Philanthropic Society (and its influence on contemporary institutions) amid growing alarm about crime levels, Draconian sentences under England's Bloody Code and a paucity of effective crime prevention measures. Driven by Enlightenment zeal and ideals, this was the first voluntary sector charity devoted to 'nipping crime in the bud'. It did so through education, training, accommodation, mentoring and support for young people. Uniquely, the book traces the first hard won policy networks and partnerships between government and the voluntary sector. It reveals how-sometimes against the odds, with funding on a knife edge but constantly striving for effective answers-influential philanthropists rose to the challenge and changed approaches to young people involved in crime and delinquency, traces of which endure today within the great crime prevention charities which still rally to this cause. Muriel Whitten's book draws on previously neglected archival sources and other first-hand research to create a formidable and illuminating account about what, for many people, will be a missing chapter in English social and legal history. Review 'Describes in colourful detail the background to the founding of the Society and how its founders and their successors worked. It explains how their plans were put into practice, how they governed and how they acquired support. It skilfully deals with questions that are still asked today such as to what extent are children to be held responsible for wrongdoing? ... Dr Whitten is admirably suited to write such a book ... and] her knowledge and experience are distilled in this comprehensive and well-written book': John Hostettler, legal historian. Read the full review Author Dr. Muriel Whitten has been a youth and family court magistrate and a member of West Sussex Probation Committee. She has lectured widely on criminal justice matters at Goldsmith's and Birkbeck (University of London), the University of Ulster and has presented for CENTREX (now the National Policing Improvement Agency). She has also contributed a weekly column to the Belfast News Letter.

Theories of Delinquency is a comprehensive survey of the theoretical approaches towards understanding delinquent behavior. Donald Shoemaker aptly presents all major individualistic and sociological theories in a standard format with basic assumptions, important concepts, and critical evaluations. Theories covered include biological and psychological explanations, anomie and social disorganization, differential association, drift theory, labeling theory, critical theories, and explanations of female delinquency. Now in its sixth edition, Theories of Delinquency contains up-to-date discussions based on current research throughout, extensive revisions to control theories, especially the general theory of crime, and expanded coverage of integrated and cutting-edge theories. Clearly written, consistently organized, and now thoroughly updated, Theories of Delinquency remains essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of crime and delinquency.

Fresh out of college, David Stuart put off graduate school to take a job close to his West Virginia home as a counselor at the Youth Development Center at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Known locally as the Morganza, the facility was founded in the nineteenth century as a farm for orphaned boys. By the 1960s, the Morganza had long been burdened with a sinister reputation when it was converted into a detention center for Allegheny County youth convicted of crimes ranging from petty theft to armed robbery, rape, and murder. Reporting for duty during the racially turbulent and riot-torn summer of 1967, Stuart describes the life of students and staff in what was, in reality, a youth prison camp.
Confronted with the glaring shortcomings of the reform school's methods of rehabilitation, Stuart irritated the bureaucracy, advocating for detainees whose only crimes were a lack of education and belonging to the wrong race or economic class. He confronted an establishment that refused to distinguish between hardened criminals and those who would benefit from actual reform. In "The Morganza, 1967" Stuart offers a brutally honest--at times touching--insider's view of a juvenile justice system that was badly in need of fixing.

A revolutionary book that offers a fresh, bold approach to confronting the juvenile crime epidemic With the rise of violent crimes committed by teenagers in recent years, heated discussion has arisen over the societal factors that lead to juvenile criminality and the ways that public institutions are failing to curtail them. Now a team of experts with decades of collective hands-on experience present a book that cuts through the hype and paranoia to offer real solutions. Drawing on actual case studies, Dispatches from Juvenile Hall shows how conventional ?tough on crime? tactics have only worsened the problem, and presents a new blueprint for change that incorporates punitive action, rehabilitation, and family intervention?a progressive program that will encourage and enlighten all those concerned about the future of our youth.

Despite the fact that media bombard the public with the notion that sex offenders are everywhere-and could be just next door-official sources show that official sex offense rates have been steadily declining over the past 10 years. Yet, when a juvenile is accused of a sexually-based crime, media attention is swift and relentless. The truth about juvenile sex offenders is often, therefore, misunderstood. In many cases, such offenders are victims themselves. Here, Gibson and Vandiver reveal the truth about juvenile sex offenders and what can be done to help them and to prevent the cycle of abuse that leads to such tragic outcomes. This book sets the records straight about juvenile sex offending. It provides accurate, up-to-date statistics, real life cases, and information about offender characteristics, victim characteristics, family factors, social issues, media involvement, and other related areas. It offers explanations for juvenile sex offending from a variety of perspectives and reviews legal and criminal responses to the problem. Included are discussions of female offenders, punitive measures to prevent repeat offenses, and other steps the federal government and individual states are taking to address the problem. The authors conclude with advice on how to protect children from becoming victims and how to prevent sexual offending in the first place.

A refined young lady stands proudly in front of the mirror in her bedroom remembering the teachers and parents who told her she'd never amount to anything. She herself even doubted, at one time, that she would ever overcome her addictions. It's the '80s: Stefany reaches puberty and begins to compare her lifestyle to other people she comes in contact with. She is faced with the cruelties of childhood and begins looking for an outlet. Media influence, gang activity is on the rise, and the pregnancy rate is the highest in their district. Stefany's teachers notice a change in her behavior when she walks into her eighth-grade class with makeup on her face, tight jeans and a nasty attitude. Society is rapidly changing for the worst. Young ladies were acting out more aggressively than the young men, and parents couldn't prepare for what was to come. ************ Stefany's downfall is a chain reaction. Reverend Sowell is sickly and Mrs. Sowell cannot control her. After her father's death, her sister Elaine, living in North Carolina, suggests to their Mother that she put their apartment building up for sale, and move Stefany there. The change is good, however, she picks up some of her old bad habits, despite her family's efforts to steer her in the right direction. She eventually gets a job, graduates from high school, and is accepted into a historically black university where she faces more challenges. Stefany eventually develops self -love and continues striving for success. She finally matures and goes back to her church roots. Through her transformation, she discovers what really matters in life. *Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Youth Justice is a key area of the current governments criminal justice policy in England and Wales. It has been the subject of an inordinate amount of recent legislation seeking to enhance the criminal courts powers to punish and prevent offending and re-offending by young people. This legislation attempts to prevent offending through criminal justice measures and there is little attempt to use non-criminal or civil law procedures to achieve the same result. This book seeks to challenge that focus and to question why delinquency in young people has been so firmly criminalized in this jurisdiction. The book addresses the consequences of criminalization in terms of the effectiveness of the measures used as well as the implications for the social construction of youth and childhood and our attitudes towards the young. Criminalization of young peoples behaviour results in them being labeled as criminal,losing identity as an individual, losing their childhood through the process of taking adult responsibility for their actions and, in policy terms, becoming viewed as a crime problem rather than as a product of failing social policy regarding employment, education and youth culture. At a society level it is contended that the identification of young people with criminal activity and the negative public image that results creates a culture of fear and distrust which may in turn create further possibilities for criminalization of their behaviour. A comparative perspective in this work examines welfare-based responses to youth crime in other European jurisdictions and questions whether the criminal justice process is an appropriate context in which to deal with young peoples problematic behaviour. This book has been shortlisted for the 2007 SLSA Book Prize.

Howard Williamson's 'Five Years' was a ground-breaking study of youth, poverty and crime in the 1970s. At its close, the boys he interviewed were left with few prospects and bleak futures. Twenty-five years later, Williamson returns to find out the sort of men these boys have become and narrates their stories in this extraordinary book.Of the original group of sixty-seven boys, seven are dead -- not one of natural causes. Williamson tracked down half of those remaining. Here they tell of their personal, family and social relationships, legal and illegal work, their experiences of the criminal justice system, and money. Contrary to what one might expect, their lives are startlingly diverse.The Milltown Boys Revisited is a riveting account of life on the edge during the Thatcher and Blair governments. It tells stories of dignity, human betterment and escape, of fatalism on the margins of criminal and drug cultures, and also of getting by in difficult circumstances. It is as much a celebration of individual resilience as an account of risk and vulnerability in the lives of the dispossessed.

Volume 31 of "Crime and Justice" presents a global view on youth justice systems, examining Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and an aggregation of Western countries. The systems are addressed in five sections, which discuss the relevance of a separate youth justice system, age limitations, historical stability and changes, welfare concerns, and a comparative look at current laws as written and administered.
Contributors:
Hans-Jorg Albrecht
Anthony Bottoms
James Dignan
Anthony N. Doob
Carl-Gunnar Janson
Josine Junger-Tas
Britta Kyvsgaard
Allison Morris
Julian V. Roberts
Jane B. Sprott
Lode Walgrave

Criminal justice professionals and the media have noted the rise of juvenile crime rates nationwide and a growing surge in youth violence. This in turn has highlighted the debate over juvenile transfers to adult courts. Proponents of treating violent juvenile offenders as adults argue that juvenile offenders should be held accountable and receive punishment that is appropriate to the seriousness of their offences and that society must be protected by their removal from law abiding communities. They urge that young offenders must be held accountable for both lesser and more serious crimes, especially when the former offences, if unpunished, may lead offenders to commit the latter. Opponents of treating violent juveniles offenders as adults argue that harsh punishment of juvenile offenders is counterproductive, creating recidivism. Their contention is that youths who are committing crimes should still be tried in juvenile courts rather than adult courts, for a greater effect. This informative book presents all the current issues, problems, ideas, as well as some background on the controversies surrounding juvenile crime.

An uncompromising look at the rise of violent crimes by America's children and the steps parents, teachers and mentors can take to save our children.

Crime and the closely-related issues of youth culture and unemployment, are among the most important social concerns facing post-apartheid leadership in South Africa. This is a textured social history of African youth gangs in the Johannesburg/Soweto area from the emergence of a "juvenile delinquency crisis" in the 1930s through to the student-led uprising of 1976. The gang subculture emerged in a context of social deprivation and stunted mobility. Young urban men, out of school and unemployed, coalesced into gangs to create a world with its own rules, style and status structures. Drawing on powerful street and neighbourhood identities, gangs provided young males with companionship, a sense of security, and dignity. The book also depicts the relationship between political organizations and gang constituencies. Gangs were extremely difficult to mobilize on a formal level. Although in some respects politicized, and sympathetic to political campaigns, youth gangs found the respectable methods and intellectual discourse of political organizations alienating. While sensitive to the plight of black urban youth, the ANC recoiled from mobilizing the volatile and potentially violent gangs. Other liberation movements, such as the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement, made concerted attempts to appeal to the gangs but, ultimately, they were forced to dissociate themselves.

This text is part of the Readings in Crime and Punishment series, a line of readers covering many aspects of the criminal justice, police, and correctional systems. In Readings in Juvenile Justice Administration, Barry C. Feld selects articles written by noted experts in the field, examining the juvenile justice system, focusing on juvenile courts, and the judicial, administrative, and correctional systems for the social control of criminal and non-criminal juvenile offenders. Feld considers legal and sociological aspects of juvenile justice administration, concentrating on causes of youth crime and development of juvenile offenders. Ideal for courses in the juvenile justice system and juvenile justice.

This work examines the links between educational failure and future offending behaviour. It contains the stories of inmates' schooldays told in their own words as they try to answer the question "could anything have been done to prevent you being in custody now?" The book ends with suggestions on action schools might take towards redressing social, cultural and educational disadvantage and intervening to help limit future offending behaviour.

The working class in New York City was remade in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1820s a substantial majority of city artisans were native-born; by the 1850s three-quarters of the city's laboring men and women were immigrants. How did the influx of this large group of young adults affect the city's working class? What determined the texture of working-class life during the antebellum period? Richard Stott addresses these questions as he explores the social and economic dimensions of working-class culture. Working-class culture, Stott maintains, is grounded in the material environment, and when work, population, consumption, and the uses of urban space change as rapidly as they did in the mid-nineteenth century, culture will be transformed. Using workers' first-person accounts-letters, diaries, and reminiscences-as evidence, and focusing on such diverse topics as neighborhoods, diet, saloons, and dialect, he traces the rise of a new, youth-oriented working-class culture. By illuminating the everyday experiences of city workers, he shows that the culture emerging in the 1850s was a culture clearly different from that of native-born artisans of an earlier period and from that of the middle class as well.

'I came away from this book enraged, enlightened and with a sense of urgency to do something' Annie Mac 'Lays down a transformative path to peace' David Lammy MP 'Compelling' The Sunday Times; 'Assured' Observer; 'Brilliantly written' Nikesh Shukla _________________________ Demetri wants to study criminology at university to understand why people around him carry knives. Jhemar is determined to advocate for his community following the murder of a loved one. Carl's exclusion leaves him vulnerable to the sinister school-to-prison pipeline, but he is resolute to defy expectations. Tony, the tireless manager of a community centre, is fighting not only for the lives of local young people, but to keep the centre's doors open. Drawing on the latest research and interviews with experts, this refreshingly nuanced and beautifully written book interweaves the stories of a cast of characters at the sharp end of the UK's serious youth violence epidemic, with chapters on subjects such as social media, gentrification and criminal justice. Showing how we are all connected to this tragedy, Cut Short is a gripping, urgent, sympathetic and often painful portrait of a society fracturing along lines of race, class and postcode. It is a blueprint for positive change, and a book we desperately need. _________________________ 'A devastating and beautifully-drawn tribute to the young boys that the media turns into statistics of knife crime' Candice Carty-Williams 'Makes you stop and think' Nick Robinson, BBC R4's Today programme 'This book strongly gives a voice to the voiceless . . . essential reading' Kenny Allstar 'Angry, impassioned, informed, accurate - the story behind the cutting short of public health and young lives' Danny Dorling 'Ciaran's work is informed by lived experience at the frontline of social change. It takes a sensitive and respectful look at the truths less often told' George the Poet

Miller's Children is a passionate and comprehensive look at the human consequences of the US Supreme Court's decision in the case of Miller v. Alabama, which outlaws mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile murderers. The decision to apply the law retroactively to other cases has provided hope to those convicted of murders as teenagers and had been incarcerated with the expectation that they would never leave prison until their own death as incarcerated adults. Psychological expert witness James Garbarino shares his fieldwork in more than forty resentencing cases of juveniles affected by the Miller decision. Providing a wide-ranging review of current research on human development in adolescence and early adulthood, he shows how studies reveal the adolescent mind's keen ability for malleability, suggesting the true potential for rehabilitation. Garbarino focuses on how and why some convicted teenage murderers have been able to accomplish dramatic rehabilitation and transformation, emphasizing the role of education, reflection, mentoring, and spiritual development. With a deft hand, he shows us the prisoners' world that is filled, first and foremost, with stories of hope amid despair, and moral and psychological recovery in the face of developmental insult and damage.

Canada is actively involved through various agencies in the domestic affairs of countries in the Global South. Over time, these practices - rationalized as a form of humanitarian assistance - have become increasingly focused on enhancing regimes of surveillance, policing, prisons, border control, and security governance. Drawing on an array of previously classified materials and interviews with security experts, Security Aid presents a critical analysis of the securitization of humanitarian aid. Jeffrey Monaghan demonstrates that, while Canadian humanitarian assistance may be framed around altruistic ideals, these ideals are subordinate to two overlapping objectives: the advancement of Canada's strategic interests and the development of security states in the "underdeveloped" world. Through case studies of the major aid programs in Haiti, Libya, and Southeast Asia, Security Aid provides a comprehensive analysis and reinterpretation of Canada's foreign policy agenda and its role in global affairs.

In the context of two hundred years of American colonial control in the Pacific, Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto shed light on the experiences of today's inner city and rural girls and boys in Hawaii who face racism, sexism, poverty, and political neglect. Basing their book on nine years of ethnographic research, the authors highlight how legacies of injustice endure, prompting teens to fight for dignity and the chance to thrive in America, a nation that the youth describe as inherently "jacked up"-rigged-and "unjust." While the story begins with the youth battling multiple contingencies, it ends on a hopeful note with many of the teens overcoming numerous hardships, often with the guidance of steadfast, caring adults.

Exploring the experiences of both male clients and female sex workers, China's Commercial Sexscapes expands upon the complex dynamics of sex worker and client relationships, and places them within the wider implications of expanding globalization and capitalism. The book is based in large part upon interviews with sex workers and their clients the author conducted while undercover as a bartender in Dongguan, an important industrial city in Guangdong province and an explicit, complicated, and multidimensional setting for study. In the wake of the financial crisis, the purchasing of sex by single, young-adult males has become an increasingly socially acceptable way for men to perform and experience heteronormative masculinity. Investigating human rights, social policy, and the criminal justice system in China, this book applies the concept of "edgework" to the commercial sex industry in Dongguan to study how men and women interact within the changing global economy.

This book applies modern object relations theory-particularly the concept of intersubjectivity as articulated by Thomas Ogden-to a population for which the "treatment du jour" is increasingly cognitive-behavioral. Taking his lead from the delinquent adolescents in his practice, Dr. Brodie presents a treatment approach based on respect rather than condescension. Adolescents are related to as people, rather than as transitory objects passing through a 'stage.' Rather than judging their feelings and behaviors as "aberrant," the author views them as having emerged out of the complex matrix of his patients' lives. Adolescence and Delinqucney: An Object Relations Theory Approach is less an attempt to apply object relations theory to a particular population than it is an attempt to illuminate the seamlessness of theory and application. Theory and case examples are presented in a dialectical relationship, psychological theory having no meaning other than an attempt to understand real people, and the people we work with are unintelligible outside some systematic frame of reference.

'Unbearably moving' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The story of a young man's coming of age, a tender tribute to a life lost, and a devastating analysis of a broken system. Aged 15 and living in LA, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released aged 26, only to be murdered three years later. In this deeply personal yet clear-eyed memoir, Danielle Allen reconstructs her cousin's life to try and understand how this tragedy came to pass. We get to know Michael himself through the eyes of a devoted relative, moving from his first steps to his first love through to the day of his arrest, his coming of age in prison, and his attempts to make up for lost time after his release. We learn what it's like to grow up in a city carved up by invisible gang borders; and we learn how a generation has been lost. With honesty and insight, Cuz circles around its subject, exposing it from all angles to reveal the shocking reality of a broken system. The result is a devastatingly powerful yet reasoned tribute to a life lost too soon. 'The book pleads with us to find the moral imagination to break the American pattern of racial abuse. Allen's ambitious, breathtaking book challenges the moral composition of the world it inhabits by telling all who listen: I loved my cousin and he loved me, and I know he'd be alive if you loved him, too' Kiese Laymon

Young Criminal Lives is the first cradle-to-grave study of the experiences of some of the thousands of delinquent, difficult and destitute children passing through the early English juvenile reformatory system. The book breaks new ground in crime research, speaking to pressing present-day concerns around child poverty and youth justice, and resonating with a powerful public fascination for family history. Using innovative digital methods to unlock the Victorian life course, the authors have reconstructed the lives, families and neighbourhoods of 500 children living within, or at the margins of, the early English juvenile reformatory system. Four hundred of them were sent to reformatory and industrial schools in the north west of England from courts around the UK over a fifty-year period from the 1860s onwards. Young Criminal Lives is based on one of the most comprehensive sets of official and personal data ever assembled for a historical study of this kind. For the first time, these children can be followed on their journey in and out of reform and then though their adulthood and old age. The book centres on institutions celebrated in this period for their pioneering new approaches to child welfare and others that were investigated for cruelty and scandal. Both were typical of the new kind of state-certified provision offered, from the 1850s on, to children who had committed criminal acts, or who were considered 'vulnerable' to predation, poverty and the 'inheritance' of criminal dispositions. The notion that interventions can and must be evaluated in order to determine 'what works' now dominates public policy. But how did Victorian and Edwardian policy-makers and practitioners deal with this question? By what criteria, and on the basis of what kinds of evidence, did they judge their own successes and failures? Young Criminal Lives ends with a critical review of the historical rise of evidence-based policy-making within criminal justice. It will appeal to scholars and students of crime and penal policy, criminologists, sociologists, and social policy researchers and practitioners in youth justice and child protection.