The Child Savers
352 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
Paperback
Release Date:22 Apr 2009
ISBN:9780813545363
The Child Savers
The Invention of Delinquency
By Anthony M. Platt; Introduction by Miroslava Chávez-García
Rutgers University Press
Hailed as a definitive analytical and historical study of the juvenile justice system, this 40th anniversary edition of The Child Savers features a new essay by Anthony M. Platt that highlights recent directions in the field, as well as a critique of his original text.
Focusing on social reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Platt's principal argument is that the "child savers" movement was not an effort to liberate and dignify youth but, instead, a punitive and intrusive attempt to control the lives of working-class urban adolescents. This expanded edition provides a renewed and distinguished contribution by placing it in historical context through insightful commentaries from cross-disciplinary academics, along with an essay by Miroslava Chávez-García examining how Platt's influential study has impacted many of the central arguments social scientists and historians face today.
The Child Savers deeply influenced me and dozens of other feminist scholars who have studied social policy critically. This reissue is remarkable in allowing us to rethink it, and nowhere more valuable than in Tony Platt's own thoughtful reconsideration.
The Child Savers, at forty, is a classic. Accompanied by lively contributions that reflect on its impact and outline recent research, this new edition will ensure that the book lives on, its message always challenging, its relevance undiminished.
'The Child Savers is a classic, and the updated edition is even more relevant today; a must for the informed public and the perceptive student.'
Like a bracing wind, Platt's brilliant inquiry into the oxymoron of juvenile justice demands again that we upend our ritualized system of punishing, containing and crushing our defiant young.
ANTHONY M. PLATT is a professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento. He is the author of several books on American history, social policy, and race relations.
In Retrospect: Anthony M. Platt's The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency, by Miroslava Chávez-García
The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency
The Child Savers Reconsidered, by Anthony M. Platt
The Child Savers and Three Cycles of Juvenile Justice Reform in Twentieth-Century America, by William Bush
Women and Kids in the Court: Feminist History and Anthony Platt's The Child Savers, by Tamara Myers
"The "Other" Child-Savers: Racial Politics of the Parental State," by Geoff Ward
The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency
The Child Savers Reconsidered, by Anthony M. Platt
The Child Savers and Three Cycles of Juvenile Justice Reform in Twentieth-Century America, by William Bush
Women and Kids in the Court: Feminist History and Anthony Platt's The Child Savers, by Tamara Myers
"The "Other" Child-Savers: Racial Politics of the Parental State," by Geoff Ward
