Becoming Delinquent

by Pamela Cox and Heather Shore

Published 20 June 2002
The purpose of this edited collection is to provide a synthesis of the growing body of work on the history of British and European juvenile delinquency. It is unique in that it analyses definitions of and responses to, disorderly youth across time (from the mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries) and across space (covering developments across Western Europe). This comparative approach allows it to show how certain themes have 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.