Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes" uncovers the perspectives of actual teenage runaways to help professionals, parents, and youths understand the widespread social problem of "last resort" behavior. You'll learn the real reasons teenagers run away, and you'll hear the anguished voices of the teenage runaways themselves, shattering the myth that only bad kids runaway.Teenage Runaways deflates popular misconceptions that runaways are incorrigible delinquents who want to leave home, that they make impulsive decisions to leave their families, and that they wish to never return. Reporting on a qualitative study of 26 runaways in a shelter in New England, this book reveals that many teenaged runaways leave home in search of safety and freedom from what they consider abusive treatment, whether physical, sexual, or emotional. In Teenage Runaways, you will discover valuable information about who these children are, why they are running away, and what you can do to help. Specifically, you will read about: why teenagers say they run away running away as "last resort behavior" what the experience of running away is like hope and desire for reconciliation with parents and family running away as a dynamic emotional experience for youths which reflects changes in their social bonds with peers, family, and adults in the educational, legal, and medical systems "emotional capital" from a heavily regulated authoritative environment Teenage Runaways provides you with a new understanding of teens in trouble to assist you in providing services to this needy and vulnerable population. First-hand accounts reveal the emotional motivations behind decisions to run away, such as 14 years-old Isabel who gives a painful account of what severe physical and sexual abuse feels like to an adolescent victim. Amy, also 14, tells her story of living with a mother who was extremely strict and betrayed her.

"Regulating Sex" is an anthology that presents debates over the role of the state in constructing and controlling erotic practice, intimacy, and identity. The purpose of this edited volume is to address sexual dilemmas in law and the state in substantive areas such as same-sex domestic partnerships, sexual economies, and childhood sexuality via a series of spirited dialogues between socio-legal scholars from diverse disciplinary, national, and political perspectives.
Contributors include Laura Agustin, Mary Bernstein, Wendy Chapkis, Paisley Currah, Kjersti Ericsson, Gert Hekma, Janet R. Jakobsen, Kerwin Kaye, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Shannon Minter, Julia O'Connell Davidson, Will Rountree, Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, Penelope Saunders, and Steven Seidman.
Accessibly written for use as a companion or text in sociology of law, gender, family, childhood and youth studies, and sexuality courses, "Regulating Sex" challenges "status quo "analyses in the sociology of sexuality and the state.

Regulating Sex is an anthology that presents debates over the role of the state in constructing and controlling erotic practice, intimacy, and identity. The purpose of this edited volume is to address sexual dilemmas in law and the state in substantive areas such as same-sex domestic partnerships, sexual economies, and childhood sexuality via a series of spirited dialogues between socio-legal scholars from diverse disciplinary, national, and political perspectives.

"Girls in Trouble with the Law offers readers a brilliant window for re-viewing the gender, race, and class politics of juvenile justice. Readers will be filled with outrage, and yet fueled by Schaffner's passionate sense of possibility and vision for 'what must be.'"--Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, CUNY "This is a superb work, intermingling poetry, narrative, interviews, and examples to create a fascinating overview of what girls experience in the juvenile corrections system, as well as how they are perceived by the people entrusted with their care. Schaffner's book is well-conceived and beautifully written."--Lynn Chancer, author of High Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes In Girls in Trouble with the Law, sociologist Laurie Schaffner takes us inside female detention centers and explores the worlds of those who are incarcerated. Across the country, she finds that an overwhelming majority of young women are from ethnic or racial minority groups, and most have experienced some form of sexual or physical assault. Focusing on the girls' experiences of violence and the inequities of the juvenile corrections system, Schaffner explores three central questions. How have changing social norms of sexuality and emotional expression influenced adolescent girls' trangressions? What do authority, consent, and choice mean to urban women in trouble? How do they experience and understand violent episodes in their lives? Offering a critical assessment of what she describes as a gender-archaic juvenile legal system, Schaffner makes a compelling argument that current policies do not go far enough to empower disadvantaged girls so that they can overcome the social limitations of gender, sexual, and racial/ethnic discrimination that continue to plague young women growing up in the contemporary United States. Laurie Schaffner is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A Volume in the Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies, edited by Myra Bluebond-Langner.