Anthony Platt's study, a chronicle of the child-saving movement and the juvenile court, explodes myth after myth about the benign character of both. The movement is described not as an effort to liberate and dignify youth but as a punitive, romantic, and intrusive effort to control the lives of lower-class urban adolescents and to maintain their dependent status. In so doing Platt analyzes early views of criminal behavior, the origins of the reformatory system, the social values of middle-class reformers, and the handling of youthful offenders before and after the creation of separate juvenile jurisdictions.

In this second, enlarged edition of The Child Savers, the author has added a new introduction and postscript in which he critically reflects upon his original analysis, suggests new ways of thinking about the child-saving movement, and summarizes recent developments in the juvenile justice system.

This thoughtful collection of original work by eminent sociologists and criminologists was compiled to honor Henry D. McKay, the pioneer investigator and collaborator with Clifford R. Shaw. Among the traditions most basic to both continuity and change in criminological research and theory, one of the most important is that associated with Shaw and McKay and the "Chicago school" of urban sociology. So great has been its impact that even the most recent theoretical formulations draw upon it for support or in criticism. Reassessing the "Shaw and McKay tradition," the contributors to this volume pursue critical and emerging issues in the study of crime and delinquency.

"Delinquency in a Birth Cohort is a turning point in criminological research in the United States," writes Norval Morris in his foreword. "What has been completely lacking until this book is an analysis of delinquency in a substantial cohort of youths, the cohort being defined other than by their contact with any part of the criminal justice system."

This study of a birth cohort was not originally meant to be etiological or predictive. Yet the data bearing on this cohort of nearly ten thousand boys born in 1945 and living in Philadelphia gave rise to a model for prediction of delinquency, and thus to the possibility for more efficient planning of programs for intervention. It is expert research yielding significant applications and, though largely statistical, the analysis is accessible to readers without mathematical training.

"No serious scholar of the methods of preventing and treating juvenile delinquency can properly ignore this book."—LeRoy L. Lamborn, Law Library Journal

"The magnitude of [this] study is awesome. . . . It should be a useful guide for anyone interested in the intricacies of cohort analysis."—Gary F. Jensen, American Journal of Sociology

"A book the student of juvenile delinquency will find invaluable."—Criminologist

From Henry Mayhew's classic study of Victorian slums to Studs Terkel's presentations of ordinary people in modern America, oral history has been used to call attention to social conditions. By analyzing the nature and circumstances of the production of such histories of delinquency, James Bennett argues that oral history is a rhetorical device, consciously chosen as such, and is to be understood in terms of its persuasive powers and aims. Bennett shows how oral or life histories of juvenile delinquents have been crucial in communicating the human traits of offenders within their social context, to attract interest in resources for programs to prevent delinquency. Although life history helped to establish the discipline of sociology, Bennett suggests concepts for understanding oral histories generated in many fields.