NCJ Number
95518
Date Published
1984
Length
214 pages
Annotation
Critically reviewing sociological criminology research, this book analyzes how the media views youth today, how youth have been treated historically, and the contemporary practice of youth control.
Abstract
The first chapter considers how the press currently informs the public about youth, focusing on the press image of youth as a major social problem. The next two chapters trace the origins of moral panics about juvenile behavior dating from the early 19th century, identify key historic shifts in the analysis of youth, and apply this historic experience and theory to contemporary juvenile delinquency. The fourth chapter shifts the focus from youths legally defined as criminal to those socially defined as deviant, offering a critical analysis of British subcultural studies of youth; examining the subcultural studies of youth; examining the relationships between deviance, leisure pursuits, and subcultural style; and analyzing the criminalization of certain subcultural behavior. In considering social reaction and institutional control, the final chapters discuss how the general parameters of youth control are effected through schooling, work, unemployment, and policing. They also detail the 'exceptional' interventions through the juvenile justice system.