A preprint of David S. Tanenhaus’s The Many Histories of Juvenile Justice, forthcoming in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, is now available. Here is the abstract:
A new framework and method for understanding the history of American juvenile justice divides this history into four periods and contextualizes the most innovative scholarship from each to demonstrate why it matters, as is the case with any subject, who writes the history, when they did so, and how. During the first period (c. 1899 to 1940), Lou Xuexi (known as Herbert H. Lou to English-language audiences) chronicled the creation, legitimation, and spread of the juvenile court idea across the United States and much of the world. He became the field’s Tocqueville. The next period (c. 1940 to 1969) witnessed a transnational reimagining of what constituted juvenile justice and a reconsideration of its history, including the publication of Anthony Platt’s The Child Savers. During the third period (c. 1970 to 2000), the field became more narrowly focused on the United States. Scholars created historical narratives that addressed the system’s differential treatment of females and racial minorities, and whether it was equipped to handle the cases of modern adolescents. In the fourth period (c. 2001 to 2024), scholarship focused on restoring hope and raising expectations, and viewed this history through the prism of carceral studies.
--Dan Ernst
