Juvenile Justice in the Making
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Description
In his engaging narrative history of the rise and workings of America's first juvenile court, David S. Tanenhaus explores the fundamental and enduring question of how the law should treat the young. Sifting through almost 3,000 previously unexamined Chicago case files from the early twentieth century, Tanenhaus reveals how children's advocates slowly built up a separate system for juveniles, all the while fighting political and legal battles to legitimate this controversial institution. Harkening back to a more hopeful and nuanced age, Juvenile Justice in the Making provides a valuable historical framework for thinking about youth policy.Reviews
"...presents new information about the oldest juvenile court in the United States. The book forces its readers to pause and think how daring some of the CCJC's ideas and practices were. This book is a welcome addition to the existing literature and should be read by scholars, students, juvenile court professionals, and the general public."--American Historical Review
"...a very useful and well-written introduction to the complex history of a pioneering institution."--Journal of American History
"A quite brilliant and compelling book. Based on his detailed analysis of some 3,000 case files from the Cook County Juvenile Court between 1899 and 1926 he builds a picture of how the first juvenile court came to be established and uncovers the historic roots of some contemporary questions about young offenders--what is the legal status of a child that commits a crime, especially a horrific one, how should they be punished, and what causes children to commit crimes in the first place?"--Howard Journal of Penal Reform
"This book is most helpful in educating lawyers and political scientists about the findings of delinquency studies from the sister disciplines of sociology and psychology."--The Law and Politics Book Review
"Juvenile Justice in the Making is a must read for anyone concerned with children. David Tanenhaus suggests that our view of childhood has changed quite radically in recent years. With the storytelling skills of an historian and the clearheadedness of a law scholar, Tanenhaus takes us back to the founding of the juvenile court to illustrate how far we've strayed from our faith in childhood as a separate province from adulthood."--Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here
About the Author(s)
Co-editor of A Century of Juvenile Justice and Editor of the Law and History Review, David S. Tanenhaus is Associate Professor of History and the James E. Rogers Professor of History and Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
