Book Review
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
For many scholars, including the Canadian historian Tamara Myers, juvenile justice is an oxymoron. “The juvenile court,” according to Myers, “was a disciplinary instrument used to maintain and uphold the subordination of adolescent girls within a patriarchal family structure that was undergoing dramatic change.” Her nuanced argument builds on Anthony M. Platt’s The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency (1969), which claimed that the creation of the juvenile court expanded the state’s power over working-class children and their families. Her findings also support and extend a major theme in subsequent scholarship that emphasizes the role of parents in bringing their daughters to court. Myers presents a complicated history of negotiations among state actors, parents, children, private associations, volunteers and professionals, and politics. Her approach also crosses national borders to offer an international history of a local court.
Publication Citation
114 Am. Hist. Rev. 1061 (2009) (reviewing Tamara Myers, Caught: Montreal's Modern Girls and the Law, 1869-1945 (2006)).
Recommended Citation
Tanenhaus, David S., "Book Review" (2009). Scholarly Works. 607.
https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/607