Lock 'em up! Imprisoning Delinquent Youth, 1820s to the Present

Catalog description

[Note: students who have already taken this course under its former number 79-353 and former title, Imprisoning Kids: Legal, Historical, and Moral Perspectives, may not enroll.]Can young lawbreakers be rehabilitated, or should they be removed from society to prevent them endangering others? Since the 1820s, reformers, philanthropists, and state officials in the Western world have wrestled with the question of how to reduce juvenile crime and turn delinquents into good citizens. The institutions and policies they created reflected their conceptions of young criminals, their backgrounds and families, their gender and their race. How did experts develop a body of knowledge about at-risk youth, what practices did they put into place, and what spaces did they build to house and contain the children? How have the children themselves responded, developing a sense of their own identity through compliance with or resistance to reformers' intent? In this course, we will explore ideas, practices, and institutions created to save juvenile delinquents, presented in reports and studies as well as fiction and film. Students will read and view a variety of primary and secondary sources from North America and Europe from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Assessment will include participation in class discussion, short written assignments, and a final project.