Becoming Delinquent: British and European Youth, 1650–1950 British and European Youth 1650-1950

This title was first published in 2002: Becoming Delinquent: British and European Youth, 1650-1950 provides a critical synthesis of the growing body of work on the history of British and European juvenile delinquency. It is unique in that it analyzes definitions of and responses to, disorderly youth across time (from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries) and across space (covering developments across Western Europe). This comparative approach allows it to show how certain themes dominated European discourses of delinquency across this period, not least panics about urban culture, poor parenting, dangerous pleasures, family breakdown, national fitness and future social stability. It also shows how these various threats were countered by recurring strategies, most notably by repeated attempts to deter delinquency, to divide responsibility between the state, civil society and the family, and to find a "proper" balance between moral reform and physical punishment, between care and control.

Contents: Introduction. Re-inventing the juvenile delinquent in Britain and Europe 1650-1950, Heather Shore (with Pamela Cox); Juvenile Delinquency in time, Paul Griffiths; On not becoming delinquent: raising adolescent boys in the Dutch republic, 1600-1750, Benjamin Roberts; Before the reformatory: a correctional orphanage in Old Regime Seville, Valentina K. Tikoff; ’Crimes inexplicables’: murderous children and the discourse of monstrosity in romantic-era France, Cat Nilan; Testing the limits: redefining resistance in a Belgian boys’ prison, 1895-1905, Jenneke Christiaens; Border crossings: care and the ’criminal child’ in nineteenth century European penal congress, Chris Leonards; Gender, after-care and reform in inter-war Norway, Astri Andresen; Absent fathers and family breakdown: delinquency in Vichy, France, Sarah Fishman; Race, delinquency and difference in twentieth century Britain, Pamela Cox; Index.