Jamie J. Fader documents the transition to adulthood for a particularly vulnerable population: young inner-city men of color who have, by the age of eighteen, already been imprisoned. How, she asks, ...do such precariously situated youth become adult men? What are the sources of change in their lives?Falling Backis based on over three years of ethnographic research with black and Latino males on the cusp of adulthood and incarcerated at a rural reform school designed to address "criminal thinking errors" among juvenile drug offenders. Fader observed these young men as they transitioned back to their urban Philadelphia neighborhoods, resuming their daily lives and struggling to adopt adult masculine roles. This in-depth ethnographic approach allowed her to portray the complexities of human decision-making as these men strove to "fall back," or avoid reoffending, and become productive adults. Her work makes a unique contribution to sociological understandings of the transitions to adulthood, urban social inequality, prisoner reentry, and desistance from offending.
Legacies of Crime explores the lives of seriously delinquent girls and boys in the United States who were followed over a twenty-year period as they grew to adulthood. In-depth interviews with these ...women and men and their children - a majority now adolescents themselves - depict the adults' economic and social disadvantages and continued criminal involvement, and in turn the unique vulnerabilities of their children. Giordano identifies family dynamics that foster the intergenerational transmission of crime, violence, and drug abuse, rejecting the notion that such continuities are based solely on genetic similarities or even lax, inconsistent parenting. The author breaks new ground in directly exploring - and in the process revising - the basic tenets of classic social learning theories, and confronting the complications associated with the parent's gender. Legacies of Crime also identifies factors associated with resilience in the face of what is often a formidable package of risks favoring intergenerational continuity.
A dream denied Soyer, Michaela
2016., 20160712, 2016, 2016-07-12
eBook
Young minority men are often portrayed in popular media as victims of poverty and discrimination.A Dream Denieddelves deeper, investigating the social and cultural implications of the "American ...dream" narrative for young minority men in the juvenile justice systems in Boston and Chicago. This book connects young male offenders' cycles of desistance and recidivism with normative assumptions about success and failure in American society, exposing a tragic disconnect between structural reality and juvenile justice policy. This book challenges us to reconsider how American society relates to its most vulnerable members, how it responds to their personal failures, and how it promises them a better future.
Juveniles possess less maturity, intelligence, and competence than adults, heightening their vulnerability in the justice system. For this reason, states try juveniles in separate courts and use ...different sentencing standards than for adults. Yet, when police bring kids in for questioning, they use the same interrogation tactics they use for adults, including trickery, deception, and lying to elicit confessions or to produce incriminating evidence against the defendants. In Kids, Cops, and Confessions, Barry Feld offers the first report of what actually happens when police question juveniles. Drawing on remarkable data, Feld analyzes interrogation tapes and transcripts, police reports, juvenile court filings and sentences, and probation and sentencing reports, describing in rich detail what actually happens in the interrogation room. Contrasting routine interrogation and false confessions enables police, lawyers, and judges to identify interrogations that require enhanced scrutiny, to adopt policies to protect citizens, and to assure reliability and integrity of the justice system. Feld has produced an invaluable look at how the justice system really works.
In low-income U.S. cities, street fights between teenage girls are common. These fights take place at school, on street corners, or in parks, when one girl provokes another to the point that she must ...either step up or be labeled a punk. Typically, when girls engage in violence that is not strictly self-defense, they are labeled delinquent, their actions taken as a sign of emotional pathology. However, in Why Girls Fight, Cindy D. Ness demonstrates that in poor urban areas this kind of street fighting is seen as a normal part of girlhood and a necessary way to earn respect among peers, as well as a way for girls to attain a sense of mastery and self-esteem in a social setting where legal opportunities for achievement are not otherwise easily available. Ness spent almost two years in west and northeast Philadelphia to get a sense of how teenage girls experience inflicting physical harm and the meanings they assign to it. While most existing work on girls' violence deals exclusively with gangs, Ness sheds new light on the everyday street fighting of urban girls, arguing that different cultural standards associated with race and class influence the relationship that girls have to physical aggression.
States of delinquency Chávez-García, Miroslava
2012., 20120122, 2012, 2012-02-21, Volume:
35
eBook
This unique analysis of the rise of the juvenile justice system from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries uses one of the harshest states—California—as a case study for examining racism in the ...treatment of incarcerated young people of color. Using rich new untapped archives, States of Delinquency is the first book to explore the experiences of young Mexican Americans, African Americans, and ethnic Euro-Americans in California correctional facilities including Whittier State School for Boys and the Preston School of Industry. Miroslava Chávez-García examines the ideologies and practices used by state institutions as they began to replace families and communities in punishing youth, and explores the application of science and pseudo-scientific research in the disproportionate classification of youths of color as degenerate. She also shows how these boys and girls, and their families, resisted increasingly harsh treatment and various kinds of abuse, including sterilization.
Criminal Careers follows the lives and criminal behaviours of 2,397 people in Poland who as juveniles committed a crime and received a form of punishment from the juvenile court between the late ...1980s and the year 2000. Through combining quantitative and qualitative research, their criminal careers, the differences between men and women, risk factors, and reasons for nondesistance are analysed. Uniquely, the authors have used an extensive database of former juveniles, in which as many as 40% were women. This book therefore makes a comparison between women and men in terms of their future life paths. Additionally, the researched group consisted of teenagers from two different periods: the 1980s (the transition generation) and 2000 (the millennial generation), which in the context of Central and Eastern European countries means that they entered adulthood in completely different realities. These differences are therefore also explored in depth within the book. By focusing on Poland, the book provides a different perspective to criminal career research, which is generally limited to a few countries in Western Europe and the United States. The book will be of great interest to academics and students who are developing their own research in the fields of criminal careers, juvenile delinquency, and antisocial behaviours by young people. It will also appeal to professionals, including juvenile judges, probation officers, staff in correctional facilities and social rehabilitation institutions, social workers and employees of nonprofit organisations that support juveniles, people in crisis, and prisoners or exprisoners.
The school-to-prison pipeline Kim, Catherine Y; Losen, Daniel J; Hewitt, Damon T
2010, 20101015, 2010-10-15
eBook, Book
Inhalt: Introduction -- The right to education -- Unlawful discrimination -- Students with disabilities -- Challenging suspensions and expulsions -- Disciplinary alternative schools and programs -- ...Criminalizing school misconduct -- Court-involved youth and the juvenile justice system -- Conclusion.
The Second Edition of Preventing and Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Comprehensive Framework aims to inform students about the latest research and the most promising and effective programs and ...provides a wealth of information for understanding, preventing and controlling juvenile delinquency.
InEveryday Desistance, Laura Abrams and Diane J. Terry examine the lives of young people who spent considerable time in and out of correctional institutions as adolescents. These formerly ...incarcerated youth often struggle with the onset of adult responsibilities at a much earlier age than their more privileged counterparts. In the context of urban Los Angeles, with a large-scale gang culture and diminished employment prospects, further involvement in crime appears almost inevitable. Yet, as Abrams and Terry point out, these formerly imprisoned youth are often quite resilient and can be successful at creating lives for themselves after months or even years of living in institutions run by the juvenile justice system.This book narrates the day-to-day experiences of these young men and women, focusing on their attempts to surmount the challenges of adulthood, resisting a return to criminal activity, and formulating long-term goals for a secure adult future.
