Youth, Crime, and Justice

Youth, Crime, and Justice: Learning Through Cases is an innovative case-based approached designed to serve as a primary textbook for a range of courses focusing on juvenile justice/policy; juvenile delinquency/crime/gangs; youth and society; childhood/adolescent development; and youth in trouble/conflict with the law. This comprehensive textbook covers the historical evolution of the core developmental institutions within modern society charged with the socialization, nurturance, guidance and regulation of children and youth including the family, schools, communities, child welfare and juvenile system. Adopting a life course perspective, the textbook examines the changing legal, social, regulatory, and political landscape of childhood and adolescence within American society with consistent focus on dynamics of race, class, ethnicity, gender, power and privilege. This book is unique in its focus on intersectionality. New features include a more thorough consideration of how justice operates across different intersections – race, gender, and class, for example – as well as an updated examination of significant changes in youth, crime, and justice, including new research on Adverse Childhood Experiences, youth-police relationships, and technology use. The book addresses challenges, successes, and promising practices in youth, crime, and justice from a youth development perspective.

The Learning Through Cases model offers students and instructors the pedagogical power of the narrative to frame the complex dynamics of the lives of diverse youth within families, communities, schools, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems. Each of the twelve chapters begins with a compelling case that illustrates the core sociological concepts, real life stories and dilemmas which frame the ongoing challenges of the societal institutions charged with meeting the needs of children and youth.