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Contents
Preface xiii The Status Offender in the Juvenile Justice

System 24
Reforming the Treatment of Status Offenders 25
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention |
Chapter One Treatment Southwest Key Programs 26
The Future of the Status Offense Concept 27
Childhood and Curfews 27
Disciplining Parents 29
Delinquency 1
The Risks and Rewards of Adolescence 3
The Problems of Youth 3
Chapter two
Focus on Delinquency Teen Risk Taking 4
Child Poverty 4
Health Problems 6
The Nature and Extent
Parental Separation and Divorce
Foster Care System 7
7 of Delinquency 32
Inadequate Education 7 Measuring Delinquency 33
Uniform Crime Report 33
What Does This Mean to Me? Older, but Wiser 7
Measuring Delinquency with Survey Research 35
Child Abuse and Neglect 8
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) 35
Social Media and the Internet 9
Self-Report Surveys 36
Is There Reason for Hope? 10
Evaluating the Primary Data Sources 37
Juvenile Delinquency 10
Crime Trends in the United States 39
The Development of Childhood 11 Delinquency Arrest Trends 40
Custom and Practice in the Middle Ages 11 Victimization Trends 40
The Development of Concern for Children 12 Self-Reported Patterns and Trends 41
Childhood in America 13 What the Future Holds 42
Controlling Children 14
Correlates of Delinquency 43
Developing Juvenile Justice 14 The Time and Place of Delinquency 43
Juvenile Justice in the Nineteenth Century 14 Gender and Delinquency 43
Urbanization 15
Focus on Delinquency Shaping Teen Crime Trends 44
The Child-Saving Movement 15
Race and Delinquency 46
Development of Juvenile Institutions 16
Social Class and Delinquency 48
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Age and Delinquency 49
Children (SPCC) 17
The Illinois Juvenile Court Act and Its Legacy 18 Chronic Offending: Careers in Delinquency 50
Reforming the System 19 Delinquency in a Birth Cohort 50
Delinquency and Parens Patriae 20 Stability in Crime: From Delinquent to Criminal 51
The Current Legal Status of Delinquency 20 What Causes Chronic Offending? 51
Legal Responsibility of Youths 21 Policy Implications 52
Is There a Bright Line Between Juveniles and Adults? 21 Juvenile Victimization 53
Status Offenders 22 What Does This Mean to Me? Aging and Wisdom 53
Origins of the Status Offense Concept 24 The Victims and Their Criminals 54
vi
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Chapter three Chapter four
Individual Views of Sociological Views

Delinquency: Choice of Delinquency 96
and Trait 57 Social Factors and Delinquency 98
Interpersonal Interactions 98
Choice Theory 59 Social Conditions 98
Choosing Delinquent Acts 60 Poverty 98
Encouraging Delinquency 60 Racial Disparity 99
Focus on Delinquency Live for Today, Tomorrow Social Structure Theories 100
Will Take Care of Itself 62 Social Disorganization 101
Discouraging Delinquency 62 Anomie/Strain Theory 104
Routine Activities Theory 64 Cultural Deviance Theory 106
Choice Theory and Delinquency Prevention 66 Social Process Theories: Socialization
General Deterrence 66 and Delinquency 107
Specific Deterrence 66 Family Relations 107
Situational Crime Prevention 68
Focus on Delinquency The Code of the Street 108
What Does This Mean to Me? Does Punishment School 108
Work? 69 Peers 109
Are Choice Theories Valid? 71
What Does This Mean to Me? Tools That Can Make
Trait Theories: Biosocial a Difference 110
and Psychological Views 71 How Socialization Influences Delinquency 110
The Origins of Trait Theory 72 Social Learning Theories 111
Contemporary Trait Theory 73 Social Control Theories 112
Biosocial Theories of Delinquency 73 Social Reaction/Labeling Theories 113
Biochemical Factors 74 Critical Theory 116
Neurological Dysfunction 75 Law and Justice 116
Genetic Influences 78 The Cause of Delinquency 116
Psychological Theories of Delinquency 81 Theory and Delinquency Prevention 118
Psychodynamic Theory 81 Social Structure Theory and Delinquency
Behavioral Theory 84 Prevention 118
Professional Spotlight Julie Medlin, Ph.D. 85 Social Process Theories and Delinquency
Focus on Delinquency Violent TV, Violent Prevention 119
Kids? 86 Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention |
Cognitive Theory 86 Intervention | Treatment Homeboy
Personality and Delinquency 88 Industries 121
Intelligence and Delinquency 89 Critical Theories and Delinquency
Trait Theory and Delinquency Prevention 90 Prevention 122
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention |
Intervention | Treatment Early Prevention Intervention | Treatment Restorative Justice
Pays Off 92 for Juveniles 124
Contents vii
Chapter five Gender and Delinquency 160
Developmental Views
Treatment Friendly PEERsuasion 161
of Delinquency: Life Gender Patterns in Delinquency 162

Trait Views 163
Course, Latent Trait, Early Biological Explanations 163
Early Psychological Explanations 163
and Trajectory 127 Contemporary Trait Views 164
Contemporary Psychological Views 165
The Life Course View 129
Socialization Views 166
The Developmental Process 130
Early Views on Gender, Socialization, and
The Glueck Research 130
Delinquency 166
Life Course Concepts 131 Contemporary Views on Gender, Socialization,
Age of Onset 131 and Delinquency 167
Focus on Delinquency The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Focus on Delinquency Resilient Girls Can Avoid a Life
Development 132 of Crime 168
Problem Behavior Syndrome 134
Continuity of Crime and Delinquency 134
Treatment Practical Academic Cultural Educational
Age-Graded Theory 135 (PACE) Center 170
Turning Points in the Life Course 135
Feminist Views 171
Developing Social Capital 137
Liberal Feminism 171
Love, Marriage, and Delinquency 138
Critical Feminism 172
The Latent Trait/Propensity View 138
What Does This Mean to Me? Sexual Harassment 173
General Theory of Crime 139
Power-Control Theory 174
What Does This Mean to Me? Family Ties 139
Gender and the Juvenile Justice System 176
Focus on Delinquency Shared Beginnings, Divergent
Lives 140
What Makes People Delinquency Prone? 140
Testing the General Theory of Crime 142
Trajectory Theory 144
Chapter seven
Violent Delinquents 145
Pathways to Delinquency 145
The Family and
Age of Onset: Adolescent-Limited and Life Course
Persistent Offenders 146
Delinquency 179
Abstainers 148 The Changing American Family 181
Focus on Delinquency Maturation and Delinquency 148 Family Makeup 181
Child Care 182
Evaluating the Developmental View 149
Economic Stress 183
Developmental Theory and Delinquency
Prevention 150 The Family’s Influence on Delinquency 183
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention | Focus on Delinquency Economic Stress and
Treatment Across Ages 152 Delinquency 184
Family Breakup 185
Family Conflict 186
Focus on Delinquency The Nurture Assumption 188
Family Effectiveness 188
Chapter six What Does This Mean to Me? Do Teens Really
Gender and Delinquency 155

isten? 190
L
Family Deviance 190
Gender Differences in Development 157 Child Abuse and Neglect 192
Socialization Differences 157 Historical Foundation 192
Cognitive Differences 157 Defining Abuse and Neglect 193
Personality Differences 158 The Effects of Abuse 193
Emotional Differences 158 The Extent of Child Abuse 194
What Causes Gender Differences? 159 Causes of Child Abuse and Neglect 196
viii Contents
The Child Protection System: Philosophy Chapter nine
and Practice 197
Trial and Disposition 200
The Abused Child in Court 201
Schools and Delinquency 237
The School in Modern American Society 239

Abuse, Neglect, and Delinquency 203
Socialization and Status 239
The Cycle of Violence 204
Education Trends and Issues 240
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention | School Discipline 241
Treatment Homebuilders 205
Dropping Out 242
Why Do Students Drop Out? 242
Focus on Delinquency Race and Special Education 244
Academic Performance and Delinquency 246
Chapter eight The School Failure–Delinquency Connection 246
Peers and Delinquency: Correlates of School Failure 247

Delinquency in Schools 249
Juvenile Gangs and Bullying 250
School Shootings 251
Groups 208 Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention |
Treatment Preventing School Bullying 252
Adolescent Peer Relations 210
Peers in the Life Course 210 What Does This Mean to Me? “Bully for You!” 254
Peers and Delinquency 211 The Causes of School Crime 254
Reducing School Crime 256
Youth Gangs 212
School Security Efforts 256
What Are Gangs? 212
How Did Gangs Develop? 213 Professional Spotlight Kevin Quinn 259
Contemporary Gangs 214 The Role of the School in Delinquency Prevention 259
Extent 215 Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention |
Location 215 Treatment Career Academies 261
Migration 216 Legal Rights in the School 262
Formation 217 The Right to Personal Privacy 262
Leadership 217 Free Speech 264
Communication 217 School Discipline 266
Gangs in Cyberspace 218
Types of Gangs and Gang Boys 218
Cohesion 219
Age 219
Chapter ten
Focus on Delinquency Gangs on the Net: Internet
Banging 220
Gender 220
Drug Use and
Ethnic and Racial Composition 222 Delinquency 269
Criminality and Violence 226
Frequently Abused Drugs 271
What Does This Mean to Me? Music and Gangs 228 Marijuana and Hashish 271
Why Do Youths Join Gangs? 228 Cocaine 271
The Anthropological View 228 Heroin 272
The Social Disorganization/Sociocultural View 228 Alcohol 272
The Anomie/Alienation View 229 Other Drug Categories 273
The Trait View 229 Drug Use Today 276
The Life Course View 229 The Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey 276
The Rational Choice View 230 The PRIDE Survey 277
Controlling Gang Activity 231 The National Survey on Drug Use and Health 277
Law Enforcement Efforts 232 Are the Survey Results Accurate? 277
Community Control Efforts 232 Why Do Youths Take Drugs? 278
Why Gang Control Is Difficult 233 Social Disorganization 278
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention | Peer Pressure 279
Treatment Cure Violence 234 Family Factors 279
Contents ix
Genetic Factors 280 Graduated Sanctions 320
Emotional Problems 280 Institutional Programs 320
Problem Behavior Syndrome 281 Alternative Courts 321
Rational Choice 281 Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention |
Pathways to Drug Abuse 281 Treatment Teen Courts 322
Adolescents Who Distribute Small Amounts of Drugs 282 The Future of Delinquency Prevention and Juvenile
Adolescents Who Frequently Sell Drugs 282 Justice 323
Teenage Drug Dealers Who Commit Other Delinquent
Acts 283
Losers and Burnouts 283
Persistent Offenders 284 Chapter twelve
Drug Use and Delinquency 284
Drugs and Chronic Offending 286 Police Work with
Explaining Drug Use and Delinquency
Drug Control Strategies 286
286
Juveniles 327
Law Enforcement Efforts 287 History of Juvenile Policing 328
What Does This Mean to Me? Reducing Drug Activity 288 Police and Juvenile Offenders 329
Education Strategies 289 Focus on Delinquency Juvenile Views About Police: A Call to
Focus on Delinquency D.A.R.E.: On the Road to Action 330
Recovery? 290 Police Roles 331
Community Strategies 290 Police and Violent Juvenile Crime 333
Treatment Strategies 291 Police and the Rule of Law 333
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention | The Arrest Procedure 334
Treatment Multisystemic Therapy 292 Search and Seizure 335
Harm Reduction 293 Custodial Interrogation 336
What Does the Future Hold? 294 Discretionary Justice 337
Environmental Factors 338
Police Policy 338
Situational Factors 339
Bias and Police Discretion 340
Chapter eleven
Police Work and Delinquency Prevention 342
Delinquency Prevention and Aggressive Law Enforcement 343
Police in Schools 343
Juvenile Justice Today 297 What Does This Mean to Me? The Debate over Police in
Delinquency Prevention 299 Schools 344
Classifying Delinquency Prevention 299 Community Policing 344
Problem-Oriented Policing 345
Early Prevention of Delinquency 301
Home-Based Programs 301 Future of Juvenile Policing 346
Focus on Delinquency Public Support for Delinquency Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention | Intervention |
Prevention 302 Treatment Pulling Levers Policing 347
Improving Parenting Skills 304
Preschool 305
Prevention of Delinquency in the Teenage Years 307 Chapter thirteen
Mentoring 308
School Programs 309
Job Training 311
Juvenile Court Process:
Juvenile Justice Today 312 Pretrial, Trial, and
The Juvenile Justice Process
Professional Spotlight Carla Stalnaker
313
316
Sentencing 351
Criminal Justice versus Juvenile Justice 317 The Juvenile Court and its Jurisdiction 352
A Comprehensive Juvenile Justice Strategy 319 Court Case Flow 352
Prevention 319 The Actors in the Juvenile Courtroom 353
Intervention 320 Professional Spotlight Lamont Christian Berecz 356
x Contents
Juvenile Court Process 357 Secure Corrections 396
Release or Detain? 357 History of Juvenile Institutions 396
The Intake Process 360 Juvenile Institutions Today: Public and Private 397
Diversion 361
What Does This Mean to Me? Community Treatment for
The Petition 363
Juvenile Offenders: Not in My Backyard 397
The Plea and Plea Bargaining 363
Population Trends 398
Transfer to the Adult Court 364 Physical Conditions 398
Waiver Procedures 365
The Institutionalized Juvenile 399
Due Process in Transfer Proceedings 365
Male Inmates 401
Should Youths Be Transferred to Adult Court? 367
Female Inmates 401
Focus on Delinquency Questions Raised About
Focus on Delinquency Mental Health Needs of Juvenile
Effectiveness of Juvenile Transfers to Adult Court
Inmates on the Rise 402
in Reducing Violence 368
Correctional Treatment for Juveniles 404
Juvenile Court Trial 371
Individual Treatment Techniques: Past and Present 405
Constitutional Rights at Trial 372
Group Treatment Techniques 405
Disposition 374
Educational, Vocational, and Recreational
Juvenile Sentencing Structures 376
Programs 406
The Death Penalty for Juveniles 377
Wilderness Programs 407
Life Without Parole for Juveniles 378
Juvenile Boot Camps 407
The Child’s Right to Appeal 379
Confidentiality in Juvenile Proceedings 380 Professional Spotlight Kristi Swanson 408
Future of the Juvenile Court 381 The Legal Right to Treatment 409
The Struggle for Basic Civil Rights 410
Juvenile Aftercare and Reentry 410
Supervision 411
Chapter Fourteen Aftercare Revocation Procedures 412
Juvenile Corrections: Future of Juvenile Corrections 412

Probation, Community Treatment Using the Intensive Aftercare Program (IAP)
Model 413
Treatment, and
Institutionalization 384
Notes 417
Juvenile Probation 386
Historical Development 387 Glossary 459
Expanding Community Treatment 387
Name Index 467
Contemporary Juvenile Probation 388
Duties of Juvenile Probation Officers 389 Subject Index 472
Probation Innovations 390
Intensive Supervision 390
Electronic Monitoring 391
Restorative Justice 392
Balanced Probation 393
Restitution 393
Residential Community Treatment 394
Contents xi
PREFACE
Ashley Reynolds was a happy 14-year-old who loved sports, did well in school aca-
demically and socially, and enjoyed keeping a journal she intended her “future self”
to read. Her life was turned upside down when she became the victim of an online
predator who took advantage of her youth and vulnerability to terrorize her by de-
manding that she send him sexually explicit images. It started innocently when she
corresponded online with someone she thought was a teenage boy but escalated
when he demanded she send ever more explicit photos. When her parents discov-
ered her predicament and contacted authorities, an investigation led to the arrest of
26-year-old Lucas Michael Chansler, who victimized 350 teenage girls just like Ashley.
To conduct his sextortion, Chansler used multiple personas and dozens of fake
screen names—such as “HELLOthere” and “goodlookingguy313”—to dupe girls
aged 13 to 15 in 26 U.S. states, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Pretending to be
a 15-year-old boy, he trolled popular online social media sites in order to strike up
relationships with teenage girls. He convinced hundreds of them to send revealing
photos, and then used the photos to threaten them with exposure, demanding they
send more sexually explicit photos.
Once a complaint was filed by Ashley’s parents, Chansler was tracked down
and his computer seized. A law enforcement task force was formed to identify and
locate his other victims. One victim was located through a picture of her and her
friends standing in front of a plate glass window at their school. Reflected in the
glass was the name of the school, which led to her identification. Another victim
was found through a radio station banner seen hanging on her bedroom wall. The
station’s call letters led to a city and, eventually, to the victim. More than 250 inves-
tigators, analysts, victim specialists, child forensic interviewers, and community child
advocacy centers were involved in locating and interviewing the known victims, but
many still remain unidentified and still living in fear.
When law enforcement agents interviewed Chansler, they asked why he selected
that age group; he told them “older girls wouldn’t fall for his ploy.” He eventually
pleaded guilty to multiple counts of child pornography production and was sent to
prison for 105 years.1
Ashley’s plight and Chansler’s crimes aptly show the difficult road adolescents
must now navigate in a rapidly changing society. They must cope with technology
that allows adult predators to victimize children in their own homes via the Internet.
Unlike their parents’ generation, today’s youth must be on the lookout for these chat
room predators who want to lure kids into sexual encounters or involve them in the
commercial sex trade itself. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that as many
as 100,000 children are currently involved in prostitution, child pornography, and
trafficking, but the true number may be in the millions. In addition, adolescents face
a variety of serious social problems, ranging from educational deficiencies to income
inequality. They routinely experience family breakup and substance abuse, and many
are forced to live in communities where crime and violence are daily occurrences. It
is not surprising considering these challenges that some kids fall prey to the lure of
juvenile delinquency, getting involved in theft, violence, and substance abuse.
1
Source: FBI, “Sextortion,” July 7, 2015, www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/july/sextortion/sextortion.
xiii
We have written Juvenile Delinquency: The Core to help students understand the
nature of juvenile delinquency, its cause, and correlates, as well as the current strate-
gies being used in its prevention and control. Our text also reviews the legal rules
that have been set down to either protect innocent minors or control adolescent mis-
conduct: Can children be required to submit to drug testing in school? Can teachers
search suspicious students or use corporal punishment as a method of discipline?
Should children be allowed to testify on closed circuit TV in child abuse cases? Can
the death penalty be used on juveniles who kill? Can a child go to prison for life?
Because the study of juvenile delinquency is a dynamic, ever‑changing field of
scientific inquiry and because the theories, concepts, and processes of this area of
study are constantly evolving, we have revised Juvenile Delinquency: The Core to
include changes, events, and conditions that have taken place during the past few
years. This new edition includes a review of recent legal cases, research studies, and
policy initiatives. We analyze and describe the nature and extent of delinquency,
the suspected causes of delinquent behavior, and the environmental influences on
youthful misbehavior. We also cover what most experts believe are the most crucial
policy issues in the treatment of juveniles who come before the law, including the
use of pretrial detention, waiver to adult court, and sentencing as an adult.
Goals and Objectives

Our primary goals in writing this edition remain the same as in the previous e ditions:
1. To be as objective as possible, presenting the many diverse views and perspec-
tives that characterize the study of juvenile delinquency and reflect its interdis-
ciplinary nature. We take no single position nor espouse a particular viewpoint
or philosophy.
2. To maintain a balance of research, theory, law, policy, and practice. It is essential
that a text on delinquency not solely be a theory book without presenting the
juvenile justice system or contain sections on current policies without examin-
ing legal issues and cases.
3. To be as thorough and up‑to‑date as possible. We have attempted to include the
most current data and information available.
4. To make the study of delinquency interesting as well as informative. We want to
encourage reader interest in the study of delinquency so that they will pursue it
on an undergraduate or graduate level.
We have tried to provide a text that is both scholarly and informative, compre-
hensive yet interesting, well organized and objective, as well as provocative and
thought provoking.
Organization of the Text

The sixth edition of Juvenile Delinquency: The Core has 14 chapters:
Chapter 1 Childhood and Delinquency contains extensive material on the history
of childhood and the development of the juvenile justice system. We examine the
legal concepts of delinquency and status offending. This material enables students
to understand how the concept of adolescence evolved over time and how that
evolution influenced the development of the juvenile court and the special status of
delinquency.
Chapter 2 The Nature and Extent of Delinquency covers the measurement of
elinquent behavior, trends and patterns in teen crime, and also discusses the cor-
d
relates of delinquency, including race, gender, class, and age and chronic offending.
xiv Preface
Chapter 3 Individual Views of Delinquency: Choice and Trait covers individual level
views of the cause of delinquency, which include choice, biological, and p
sychological
theories.
Chapter 4 Sociological Views of Delinquency looks at theories that hold that
e conomic, cultural, and environmental influences control delinquent behavior.
These include structure, process, reaction, and conflict theories.
Chapter 5 Developmental Views of Delinquency covers developmental theories of
delinquency, including such issues as the onset, continuity, and termination of a
delinquent career.
Chapter 6 Gender and Delinquency explores the sex-based differences that are
thought to account for the gender patterns in the delinquency rate.
Chapter 7 The Family and Delinquency covers the influence of families on children
and delinquency. The concept of child abuse is covered in detail, and the steps in the
child protection system are reviewed.
Chapter 8 Peers and Delinquency: Juvenile Gangs and Groups reviews the effect
peers have on delinquency and the topic of teen gangs.
Chapter 9 Schools and Delinquency looks at the influence of schools and the
education process as well as delinquency within the school setting.
Chapter 10 Drug Use and Delinquency reviews the influence drugs and substance abuse
have on delinquent behavior and what is being done to reduce teenage drug use.
Chapter 11 Delinquency Prevention and Juvenile Justice Today examines the role
of prevention programs and juvenile justice in contemporary American society. It
overviews key features of delinquency prevention and reviews the effectiveness of
delinquency prevention programs for children and adolescents. It also covers the
major stages in the juvenile justice process, the differences between the adult and
juvenile justice systems, and a comprehensive juvenile justice strategy.
Chapter 12 Police Work with Juveniles discusses the role of police in delinquency
prevention. It covers legal issues such as major court decisions on searches and
the Miranda rights of juveniles. It also contains material on race and gender effects
on police discretion as well as efforts by police departments to control delinquent
behavior.
Chapter 13 Juvenile Court Process: Pretrial, Trial, and Sentencing contains informa-
tion on plea bargaining in juvenile court, the use of detention, transfer to adult
court. It contains analysis of the critical factors that influence the waiver decision,
the juvenile trial, and sentencing.
Chapter 14 Juvenile Corrections: Probation, Community Treatment, and Institution-
alization covers material on probation and other community dispositions, including
restorative justice and secure treatment. There is an emphasis on legal issues such as
the right to treatment, juvenile aftercare, and reentry.
What’s New in this Edition

Chapter 1 now includes data on the foster care system, which has expanded rapidly
as families undergo divorce, separation, and breakup. The Focus on Delinquency
feature “Teen Risk Taking” has been updated with recent data collected by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) annual Youth Risk Behavior
Survey (YRBS), which monitors health-risk behaviors among youth and young
adults. Simon Singer’s analysis of teen behavior in America’s safest city is discussed.
There is new information on the U.S. educational system that, according to the
Children’s Defense Fund, is in trouble because nearly 60 percent of all fourth and
Preface xv
eighth grade public school students cannot read or compute at grade level. We have
a new section on cyberbullies, who navigate the Net and utilize technology in a way
that allows them to harass people by sending emails or instant messages or post-
ing slanderous messages on social networking sites. There is information on DNA
collection from juveniles following a delinquency adjudication in juvenile court. A
new section entitled “Is There a Bright Line Between Juveniles and Adults?” looks
at the issue of whether adolescents who commit serious crimes should be treated
equally as adults. A new exhibit sets out some current status offense laws. A new
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention/Intervention/Treatment feature looks at the
Southwest Key Programs, a national organization that provides a variety of pro-
grams that serve over 200,000 youth and their families annually. Finally, we cover
recent research on the incarceration of status offenders and policy measures to
improve their treatment.
Chapter 2 updates all the key data on the nature and extent of juvenile delinquency.
The sections on race and gender trends have also been updated.
Chapter 3 now includes a section on parental monitoring, a concept that holds that
effective monitoring by parents reduces the likelihood that kids will commit crime.
A new section on limited opportunity shows that the greater opportunity kids have
to commit delinquency the more likely they are to engage in illegal acts. We look
at the issue of social concern, a view put forth by sociologist Robert Agnew that
suggests that most people are naturally socially concerned and are taught from
an early age to respect the rights of others. The theoretical association between
delinquency and genes is updated and discussed in greater detail.
Chapter 4 covers the fact that the wealth gap has now reached record high levels.
A new feature on restorative justice for juveniles examines one of the numerous
restorative justice initiatives that target juvenile offenders.
Chapter 5 updates a Focus on Delinquency feature covering the Cambridge Study
in Delinquent Development and includes the newest research. Another Focus on
Delinquency feature, “Maturation and Delinquency,” discusses the development of
impulse control and future orientation.
Chapter 6 now covers emotional differences between boys and girls and how they
regulate their emotions and feelings; research shows that in many situations gen-
der differences in emotionality are narrow. A Prevention/Intervention/Treatment
feature covers the Friendly PEERsuasion program, which helps girls deal with
emotional and social pressures that contribute to substance abuse. A new section
called “Why Is the Gender Gap Narrowing?” looks at recent trends in the juvenile
delinquency rate and why boys and girls are now committing the same type of
offenses. A new section on peer interaction examines how physical attractiveness
and sociability—traits that should otherwise be valued—may actually harm young
girls. Another new section looks at how the onset of deviance is likely to occur when
young women are prematurely thrust into adult roles and responsibilities. A new
exhibit looks into the lives of sex trafficking victims. Another new section on girls
in the juvenile justice system shows how girls are still disadvantaged if their behav-
ior is viewed as morally incorrect by government officials or if they are considered
beyond parental control.
Chapter 7 looks at the newest data on the changing and evolving American family.
New data on the association between family functioning and crime are presented,
including changes and trends in the divorce rate and how children are being cared
for today. There is an analysis of the Homebuilders program, an in-home, intensive
family preservation service (IFPS) and reunification program for families with
children newborn to 17 years old.
Chapter 8 presents the latest data on gangs, including the fact that there has been
a 15 percent increase in gang membership since 2006 and that 850,000 youths
x vi Preface
now belong to gangs. There is a new section on prison gangs and street gangs that
confronts the close association between these groups. The Focus on Delinquency
feature “Gangs on the Net: Internet Banging” shows how gang members use the
Internet and social networking sites and are now involved in online crime and
deviance. There is information on newly emerging types of gang activity that now
includes falsified tax returns and the attempt to funnel tax refunds through fam-
ily members. There is a new section on the life course view of gang formation. A
Prevention/Intervention/Treatment feature looks at the Cure Violence program,
an effective community approach to preventing and reducing gang violence.
Chapter 9 provides new data on school success and delinquency. Information on the
current status of the American educational system has been updated. The latest on
gangs in schools and school violence is provided. A number of new school-based
delinquency prevention programs are featured.
Chapter 10 updates recent trends and patterns in juvenile drug use based on three
national surveys, including the large-scale Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey.
The chapter covers the latest research on the effects of medical marijuana laws on
juvenile drug use. It updates research on the major explanations for why youths
take drugs, including peer pressure and rational choice, and updates research on why
juveniles sell drugs. The chapter also includes new material on effective p
rograms
for reducing juvenile drug use.
Chapter 11 includes the latest evaluation findings on delinquency prevention
rograms for children, families, and teens, and updates material on public support
p
for delinquency prevention programs. We expanded coverage of the comprehensive
juvenile justice strategy and highlight the new Department of Justice findings on
teen drug courts.
Chapter 12 presents new research on juveniles’ attitudes toward the police and
updates statistics on the handling of juvenile offenders by the police, which show
that two-thirds of all juveniles who are arrested are referred to juvenile court. The
chapter includes new research on training police in procedural justice and reviews
the latest developments following Ferguson, including the President’s Task Force on
21st Century Policing. The chapter also reports on the latest findings on what works
in police efforts to prevent juvenile crime.
Chapter 13 includes the latest statistics on the juvenile court case flow, from the
decision to release or detain, to waivers to adult court, to juvenile court dispositions,
and presents new research on plea bargaining. It updates material on the effective-
ness of transfers to adult court. The chapter also includes new studies on the latest
Supreme Court ruling on life without parole for juvenile offenders.
Chapter 14 reports on the latest trends in juvenile probation and incarceration. It
examines new research on restorative justice and economic sanctions for juvenile
offenders. It revisits the gender gap in correctional treatment for juvenile offenders.
The chapter also reports on the latest research findings on what works for treating
juvenile offenders in the community and in correctional settings.
Learning Tools
The text contains the following features designed to help students learn and
comprehend the material:
Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives

Each chapter begins with an outline. There is a list of key learning objectives, which
appear again in the appropriate sections within the chapter.
Preface xvii
Success Story (“Real Cases/Real People”)
Each chapter opens with a vignette describing a real-life situation in which an
at-risk youth worked his or her way out of delinquency. These real-life stories are
then tied to the material in the chapter with thought-provoking critical thinking
boxes (“Looking Back to ___’s Story”).
Concept Summary
This feature is used throughout the text to help students review material in an
organized fashion.
Checkpoints
Summaries of key points from preceding sections appear in each chapter.
What Does This Mean to Me?

These are short yet provocative discussions designed to provoke student interest,
interaction, and analysis.
Focus on Delinquency
As in previous editions, these boxed inserts focus attention on topics of special
importance and concern. For example, in Chapter 4, a Focus on Delinquency feature
entitled “The Code of the Street” reviews Elijah Anderson’s widely cited view of
the interrelationship of culture and behavior.
Professional Spotlight
These boxes focus on the careers of people working in the field of juvenile
delinquency so that students can get a here-and-now glimpse of what professional
opportunities are available in the area of delinquency treatment, prevention, and
intervention. Featured in Chapter 14, for example, is Kristi Swanson, a teacher in
the Idaho prison juvenile unit.
Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention/Intervention/Treatment

These boxes discuss major initiatives and programs. For example, the evidence-based
program of multisystemic therapy is profiled in Chapter 10.
Weblinks
In the margins of every chapter are links to websites that can be used to help students
enrich their understanding of important issues and concepts found within the text.
Chapter Summary
Each chapter ends with a summary of key concepts from the chapter.
Key Terms
Key terms are defined throughout the text when they appear in a chapter.
Questions for Review

Each chapter now has review questions that determine whether students have
retained key concepts from the chapter and help them prepare for tests.
x viii Preface
Questions for Discussion
Each chapter ends with thought-provoking discussion questions.
Applying What You Have Learned

This feature provides students with an intriguing hypothetical dilemma and asks
them to write an essay solving the problem or addressing the issue using the
knowledge they acquired in the chapter.
Running Glossary
A glossary is included which sets out and defines key terms used in the text. The
definitions appear in the text margin where the concept is introduced, as well as in
the comprehensive glossary at the end of the book.
Ancillaries
An extensive package of supplemental aids accompanies this edition of Juvenile
Delinquency: The Core. They are available to qualified adopters. Please consult your
local sales representative for details.
For the Instructor

Online Instructor’s Manual The manual includes learning objectives, key terms,
a detailed chapter outline, student activities, and media tools. The learning
o bjectives are correlated with the discussion topics, student activities, and
m edia tools. The manual is available for download on the password-protected
website and can also be obtained by e-mailing your local Cengage Learning
representative.
Online Test Bank Each chapter of the test bank contains questions in
ultiple-choice, true/false, completion, and essay formats, with a full answer key.
m
The test bank is coded to the learning objectives that appear in the main text,
references to the section in the main text where the answers can be found, and
Bloom’s taxonomy. Finally, each question in the test bank has been carefully
reviewed by experienced criminal justice instructors for quality, accuracy, and
content coverage. The Test Bank is available for download on the password-
protected website and can also be obtained by e-mailing your local Cengage
Learning representative.
Cengage Learning Testing, Powered by Cognero This assessment software is a flex-
ible, online system that allows you to import, edit, and manipulate test bank content
from the Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, 6th Edition test bank or elsewhere, includ-
ing your own favorite test questions; create multiple test versions in an instant; and
deliver tests from your LMS, your classroom, or wherever you want.
Online PowerPoint® Lectures Helping you make your lectures more engaging while
effectively reaching your visually oriented students, these handy Microsoft Power-
Point slides outline the chapters of the main text in a classroom-ready presentation.
The PowerPoint slides are updated to reflect the content and organization of the
new edition of the text and feature some additional examples and real-world cases
for application and discussion. Available for download on the password-protected
instructor companion website, the presentations can also be obtained by e-mailing
your local Cengage Learning representative.
Preface xix
For the Student
MindTap™ for Juvenile Delinquency With MindTap Criminal Justice for Juvenile
Delinquency: The Core, you have the tools you need to better manage your limited
time, with the ability to complete assignments whenever and wherever you are
ready to learn. Course material that is specially customized for you by your instruc-
tor in a proven, easy-to-use interface keeps you engaged and active in the course.
MindTap helps you achieve better grades today by cultivating a true understand-
ing of course concepts, with a mobile app to keep you on track. With a wide a rray
of course-specific tools and apps—from note taking to flashcards—you can feel
confident that MindTap is a worthwhile and valuable investment in your education.
You will stay engaged with MindTap’s video cases and career scenarios and remain
motivated by information that shows where you stand at all times—both individu-
ally and compared to the highest performers in class. MindTap eliminates the guess-
work, focusing on what’s most important with a learning path designed specifically
by your instructor and for your Juvenile Delinquency course. Master the most
important information with built-in study tools such as visual chapter summaries
and integrated learning objectives that will help you stay organized and use your
time efficiently.
Acknowledgements
The preparation of this text would not have been possible without the aid of
C arolyn Henderson Meier, who is extremely patient and always helpful. The
fabulous Shelley Murphy is the world’s most wonderful content developer; we
would be lost without her guidance. We would like to give special thanks to our
terrific and supportive content project manager, Christy Frame. The fantastic
L unaea Weatherstone, the copy editor, did a thorough job, and it was a great
pleasure to work with her, as always. Kim Adams Fox, our photo development
editor, is always creative and enthusiastic. Special thanks to Sema Taheri for
excellent research assistance.
Larry Siegel
Brandon Welsh
xx Preface
C hapter
1
Childhood and Delinquency
Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images
CHAPTER OUTLINE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The Risks and Rewards of Adolescence Development of Juvenile Institutions 1. Analyze the risks faced by
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
The Problems of Youth
to Children (SPCC)
youth in American culture.
Focus on Delinquency / Teen Risk Taking
Child Poverty The Illinois Juvenile Court Act and 2. List the major events in
Its Legacy
Health Problems the history of childhood.
Parental Separation and Divorce Reforming the System
Foster Care System Delinquency and Parens Patriae 3. Trace the history and
Inadequate Education The Current Legal Status of purpose of the juvenile
Child Abuse and Neglect Delinquency
Legal Responsibility of Youths justice system.
Social Media and the Internet
Is There Reason for Hope? Is There a Bright Line Between 4. Evaluate the effectiveness
Juveniles and Adults?
Juvenile Delinquency of the early juvenile court.
Status Offenders
The Development of Childhood Origins of the Status Offense Concept 5. Contrast the treatment of
Custom and Practice in the
Middle Ages
The Status Offender in the Juvenile juvenile delinquents and
Justice System
The Development of Concern Reforming the Treatment of Status status offenders.
for Children Offenders
Childhood in America Juvenile Delinquency / Intervention:
Controlling Children Southwest Key Program
Developing Juvenile Justice The Future of the Status Offense
Juvenile Justice in the Nineteenth Concept
Century Curfews
Urbanization Disciplining Parents
The Child-Saving Movement
Aaliyah’s Story
Aaliyah Parker ran away from home at the age of 17. was able to detoxify her body and engage in intensive
She struggled with family issues and felt she could no counseling. The program also provided family therapy
longer live with her mother, stepfather, and younger through phone counseling for Aaliyah’s mother, allowing
siblings in their California home. Arriving in Colorado the family to reconnect. Despite this renewed contact,
with no family support, no money, and no place to live, returning home was not an option for Aaliyah.
she joined other runaway adolescents, homeless on the Aaliyah contacted a group home run by a local
streets. Aaliyah began using drugs and was eventually church that takes runaway adolescents through county
Real Cases/Real People
arrested and detained at a juvenile detention center for placements and provides a variety of services for clients
possession of methamphetamines and providing false and their families. Aaliyah entered the group home, was
information to a police officer. able to get her high school diploma, and eventually
When Aaliyah entered the juvenile justice system enrolled in an independent living program that assisted
she was a few months from turning 18. Due to issues her in finding a job and getting her own apartment.
of jurisdiction, budget concerns, and Aaliyah’s age, Aaliyah has remained in contact with her juvenile case
system administrators encouraged the case worker worker. Although she has struggled with her sobriety
assigned to Aaliyah to make arrangements for her to on occasion, she has been able to refrain from using
return to her family in California. The case worker could methamphetamines. Her case worker continues to
see that Aaliyah had a strong desire to get her life back encourage Aaliyah and has been an ongoing source
on track. She needed assistance, but the cost of her of support, despite the fact that the client file was
treatment would be over $3,000 per month, and the closed several years ago. Aaliyah’s success can be
county agency’s budget was already stretched. She credited to the initial advocacy of her case worker, the
was transported from the juvenile detention center to a effective interventions, and to the strong determination
90-day drug and alcohol treatment program where she demonstrated by this young woman.
There are now about 75 million children in the United States under age 17—about
24 percent of the population—many of whom share some of the same problems
as Aaliyah.1 Thousands become runaways and wind up on the streets where their
safety is compromised, and they may turn to drugs, alcohol, and crime as street sur-
vival strategies. Simply spending time on the streets increases their likelihood for
violence.2
The present generation of adolescents faces many risks. They have been de-
scribed as cynical, preoccupied with material acquisitions, and uninterested in cre-
ative expression.3 By age 18, the average American adolescent has spent more
time in front of a television set than in the classroom. In the 1950s, teenagers were
reading comic books, but today they watch TV shows, play video games, and at-
tend films that rely on graphic scenes of violence as their main theme; each year
they may see up to 1,000 rapes, murders, and assaults. When they are not texting
and tweeting, teens are listening to rap songs that espouse violence, even by such
mainstream artists as Eminem, who warns fellow singer Iggy Azalea in the song
“Vegas” (2014):
So swallow my pride you’re lucky just to follow my ride.
If I let you run alongside the Humvee.
Unless you’re Nicki, grab you by the wrist, let’s ski.
So what’s it gon’ be? Put that s*** away Iggy.
You don’t wanna blow that rape whistle on me.
Squee! I love it. ’Fore I get lost with the gettin’ off.
Such explicit lyrics routinely describe substance abuse and promiscuity and glo-
rify the gangsta lifestyle. How does exposure to this music affect young listeners?
Should we be concerned? Maybe we should. Research has found that kids who listen
2 Chapter 1
to music with a sexual content are much more likely to engage in precocious sex
than adolescents whose musical tastes run to Chris Tomlin or Carrie Underwood.4
The Risks and Rewards of Adolescence

The problems of American society have had a significant effect on our nation’s
youth. Adolescence is a time of trial and uncertainty, a time when youths experience
anxiety, humiliation, and mood swings. During this period, the personality is still
developing and is vulnerable to a host of external factors. Adolescents also undergo
a period of rapid biological development. During just a few years’ time, their height,
weight, and sexual characteristics change dramatically. Two hundred years ago girls
matured sexually at age 16, but today they do so at 12.5 years of age. Although they
may be capable of having children as early as 14, many youngsters remain emotion-
ally immature long after reaching biological maturity. At age 15, a significant num-
ber of teenagers are unable to meet the responsibilities of the workplace, the family,
and the neighborhood. Many suffer from health problems, are underachievers in
school, and are skeptical about their ability to enter the workforce and become pro-
ductive members of society.
In later adolescence (ages 16 to 18), youths may experience a crisis that psy-
chologist Erik Erikson described as a struggle between ego identity and role dif-
fusion. Ego identity is formed when youths develop a firm sense of who they are
and what they stand for; role diffusion occurs when youths experience uncertainty
and place themselves at the mercy of leaders who promise to give them a sense of
identity they cannot mold for themselves.5 Psychologists also find that late adoles-
cence is dominated by a yearning for independence from parental control.6 Given
this mixture of biological change and desire for autonomy, it isn’t surprising that
the teenage years are a time of conflict with authority at home, at school, and in the
community.
The teen years bring many new risks—including some that are life-threatening.
Each year about 11,000 teens lose their lives from illness but also from such unex-
pected and preventable events as motor vehicle accidents, homicide, and suicide. It
is estimated that three-quarters of teen deaths are due to preventable causes, yet LO1 Analyze the risks faced by
little is being done to reduce the death rate.7 Youths considered at risk to these youth in American culture.
damaging social, emotional, and physical outcomes are those who engage in danger-
ous conduct, such as drug abuse, alcohol use, and precocious sexuality. Although
ego identity According
it is impossible to determine precisely the number of at-risk youths in the United
to Erik Erikson, ego identity is
States, at least 10 million American teens fall in this category. The risks facing young
formed when persons develop a
people in contemporary society and the factors that cause them to take risks are the
firm sense of who they are and
subject of the accompanying Focus on Delinquency feature.
what they stand for.
role diffusion According
The Problems of Youth to Erik Erikson, role diffusion
occurs when youths spread
While the United States may be one of the world’s wealthiest nations, teens today themselves too thin, experience
face a myriad of social, personal, educational, and financial problems that impede personal uncertainty, and place
their development. Typically the most pressing problems facing American youth themselves at the mercy of
include: leaders who promise to give
them a sense of identity they
●● Child poverty cannot develop for themselves.
●● Inadequate health care at-risk youths Young
●● Parental separation and divorce people who are extremely
●● Foster care system vulnerable to the negative
consequences of school failure,
●● Inadequate educational attainment
substance abuse, and early
●● Abuse and neglect sexuality.
●● Coping with the modern world8
Focus on
Delinquency
Teen Risk Taking

Teens are risk takers. The Centers who had been in a physical fight at among the high school students who
for Disease Control and Prevention least once during the past 12 months are currently sexually active, condom
(CDC) sponsors an annual Youth decreased from 42 percent to 25 per- use also has declined from 63 percent
Risk Behavior Surveillance (YRBS) cent. Fights on school property have in 20 03 to 59 percent in 20 13. This
that monitors health-risk behav- been cut in half during the past decline follows a period of increased
iors among youth and young adults. 20 years, with 16 percent of high condom use throughout the 1990s and
Among the risky behaviors measured school students having been in a fight early 2000s.
include dangerous driving habits, to- on school property in 1993 compared Kids are more distracted than ever
bacco, alcohol and other drug use, and to 8 percent in 2013. Fewer kids are before, one reason educational success
sexual behaviors that contribute to contemplating suicide, down to 17 per- has been muted. On a positive note,
unintended pregnancy. Results from cent from 29 percent in 1991; how- the percentage of high school students
the most recent (2013) YRBS show ever, more kids are physically harming who watch three or more hours of TV
mixed results have been accrued over themselves in suicide attempts (about on an average school day decreased
the past two decades. On the plus side, 2.7 percent). from 43 percent in 1999 to 32 percent
the smoking rate among high school While these trends are positive, in 2013. Taking up the slack has been
students has dropped to the lowest adolescents are still engaging in risky computer use: during the past 10 years,
recorded level since 1991; about behaviors. Among high school stu- the percentage of high school students
16 percent of students now smoke on dents who had driven a car or other using a computer three or more hours
a regular basis. There was a signifi- vehicle during the past 30 days, per day (for non–school related work)
cant decline from 2007 to 2013 in the 41 percent of students text or email nearly doubled—from 22 percent in
percentage of high school students while driving. There were also mixed 2003 to 41 percent in 2013.
drinking soda (or pop) one or more results regarding youth sexual risk Most teens are risk takers even
times per day—from 34 percent to behaviors. The percentage of high if they live in upper-class suburban
27 percent. school students who are currently towns that on the surface appear safe
Significant progress also has been sexually active (had sexual inter- and crime free. Criminologist Simon
made in reducing physical fighting course during the past three months) Singer’s recent analysis of delinquency
among adolescents. Since 1991, the has declined from 38 percent in 1991 in Amherst, New York—considered a
percentage of high school students to 34 percent in 20 13. However, very safe enclave—shows that while
Child Poverty
Poverty in the United States is more prevalent now than in the late 1960s and early
1970s, and has escalated rapidly since 2000. While poverty problems have risen for
nearly every age, gender, and race/ethnic group, the increases in poverty have been
most severe among the nation’s youngest families (adults under 30), especially
those with one or more children present in the home. Today somewhere between
14 and 16 million children in America are considered poor, living in families with
incomes below the federal poverty level—about $24,000 per year for a family of
four. Of these, 7 million children live in extreme poverty, which today means liv-
ing on less than $11,800 for a family of four; the younger the child, the more likely
they are to live in extreme poverty.9 But the federal poverty level is unrealistic, and
a family of four needs more than $24,000 per year to meet basic needs; as a result,
about 45 percent of all American children can be considered living in low-income
families.10
4 Chapter 1
the violence and gangs present in planning a future is problematic in a Critical Thinking
the inner cities may not be a prob- society where job elimination and cor-
lem in the suburbs, adolescents there porate downsizing are accepted busi- 1. Should there be a major
are still struggling to make their way ness practices, and divorce and family national effort to restore these
in a complex and technologically ad- restructuring are epidemic. In some troubled youths using a holistic,
vanced world. While violent crime is elements of society, kids believe they nonpunitive approach that
rare here, risky behaviors such as petty have no future, leaving them to ex- recognizes the special needs of
delinquency and drug use are com- periment with risky alternatives, such children. How would you convince
monplace; self-destructive behaviors, as drug dealing or theft. Feeding risk kids to stop taking risks?
including suicides, are also not un- taking is our culture of consumerism. 2. Do you agree that elements of
common. Those youths who can find Even in high school, peer respect is contemporary society cause kids
support from caring adults at home, bought through the accumulation of to take risks, or is it possible
school, and the athletic field are the material goods. For those kids whose that teens are natural risk takers
ones most likely to avoid unwarranted families cannot afford to keep up, de- and their risky behavior is a
risks—a concept Singer calls relational linquent behavior may be a shortcut biological reaction to “raging
modernity. to getting coveted name-brand clothes hormones”?
Research has shown that many and athletic shoes.
Writing Assignment Everyone has taken
adolescents may be too immature to As children mature into adults, the
risks in their life and some of us have
understand how dangerous risk tak- uncertainty of modern society may
had to face the consequences. Write an
ing can be and are unable to properly prolong their risk-taking behavior.
essay detailing one of your riskiest be-
assess potential danger. Consequently, Jobs have become unpredictable, and
haviors and what you learned from the
many crave behaviors considered many undereducated and undertrained
experience.
emotionally edgy, dangerous, exciting, youths find themselves competing for
challenging, volatile, and potentially the same low-paying job as hundreds
emotionally, socially, and financially of other applicants; they are a “surplus Sources: Simon Singer, America’s Safest City:
costly—even life threatening seems product.” They may find their only al- D e l i n q u e n c y a n d M o d e r n i t y i n S u b u r b i a
(New York: NYU Press, 2014); Centers for Dis-
quite appealing to youth who are test- ternative for survival is to return to ease Control and Prevention (CDC), Youth
ing their limits. Youths commonly be- their childhood bedroom and live off Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2013,
come involved in risky behavior as their parents. Under these circum- www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6304.pdf (accessed
August 20 15); Nanette Davis, Youth Crisis:
they negotiate the hurdles of adoles- stances, risk taking may be a plausible G rowing Up in the High-Risk Society (New York:
cent life, learning to drive, date, drink, alternative for fitting in in our con- Praeger/Greenwood, 1998).
work, relate, and live. They find that sumer-oriented society.
Which kids live in poverty? Minority kids are much more likely than white,
non-Hispanic children to experience poverty, though because of their numerical
representation, there are actually a larger number of poor white children in the pop-
ulation. Nonetheless, proportionately, Hispanic and black children are about three
times as likely to be poor than their white peers.11
Child poverty can exact a terrible lifelong burden and have long-lasting nega-
tive effects on the child’s cognitive achievement, educational attainment, nutrition,
physical and mental health, and social behavior. Poor children often lag behind
their peers: they are less healthy, can trail in emotional and intellectual develop-
ment, and are less likely to graduate from high school.12 Educational achievement
scores between children in affluent and low-income families have been widening
over the years, and the incomes and wealth of families have become increasingly
important determinants of adolescents’ high school graduation, college attendance,
and college persistence and graduation. The chances of an adolescent from a poor
Poverty hits kids especially hard,
making it difficult for them to be
part of the American Dream. Here
Jalinh Vasquez holds her sister
Jayshel Barthelemy in the FEMA
Diamond trailer park in Port Sul-
phur, Louisiana, where they still live
with five other children and four
adults four years after Hurricane
Katrina destroyed their home.
Mario Tama/Getty Images News/Getty Images

They are still awaiting money from
the federal Road Home program
to purchase a new home. Ap-
proximately 2,000 families in the
New Orleans metropolitan area live
in FEMA trailers, and 80 percent of
those still in trailers were home-
owners who are unable to return
to their storm-damaged houses.
family with weak academic skills obtaining a bachelor’s degree by their mid-20s is
now close to zero.13
Health Problems
Receiving adequate health care is another significant concern for American youth.
Only one in three children is physically active every day. One reason may be that
children now spend more than seven and a half hours a day in front of a screen
(e.g., TV, video games, computer). Another reason is lack of opportunity for
On February 18, 2015, Celeste

Cottage, 8, joined dozens of other
children, their parents, and sup-
porters calling for increased child
care subsidies for low-income
families at a rally in Sacramento,
California. One way to help reduce
child poverty is to expand access
ASSOCIATED PRESS
to affordable child care so that

parents can afford to find jobs
without being concerned for the
health and safety of their children.
6 Chapter 1
exercise: only about 20 percent of homes have parks within a
half-mile, and about the same number have a fitness or recre- Older, but Wiser
ation center within that distance.14 “When I was a boy of
Kids with health problems may only be helped if they have fourteen, my father
insurance. And while most kids now have health care coverage was so ignorant I
of some sort, about 10 percent or 7.5 million youth do not.15 As could hardly stand to have the old man
might be expected, children who are not healthy, especially those around. But when I got to be twenty-
who live in lower-income families and children from ethnic and one, I was astonished at how much he had
minority backgrounds, are subject to illness and early mortality. learned in seven years.” (Mark Twain, “Old Times
The infant mortality rate is now 6 per 1,000 births.16 However, on the Mississippi,” Atlantic Monthly, 1874)
there are substantial racial and ethnic disparities in infant mor- Do you agree with Mark Twain? When you
tality. Black, non-Hispanic Native American, and Alaskan look back at your adolescence, are you sur-
Native infants have consistently higher infant mortality rates than prised at how much you thought you knew
those of other racial or ethnic groups. Black, non-Hispanic infant then and how little you know now? Did you
mortality rates were more than double that of white infant rates. do anything that you now consider silly and
immature? Of course, as they say, “Hindsight
Parental Separation and Divorce is always 20/20.” Maybe there is a benefit to
All too often children in the United States spend their early teenage rebellion. For example, would it make
lives in homes racked by tension and conflict, absentee par- you a better parent knowing firsthand about all
ents, separation, and divorce. Family dissolution has become the trouble your kids get into and why they do?
a common occurrence in the United States. According to
the American Psychological Association, healthy marriages
are good for couples’ mental and physical health. They are
also good for children; growing up in a happy home protects
children from mental, physical, educational, and social prob-
lems. However, about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the
United States divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent mar-
riages is even higher; second marriages fail at a rate of 60 to
67 percent, and third marriages fail at a rate of 73 to 74 percent.17
Foster Care System

As families undergo divorce, separation, and breakup, kids are
often placed in foster care. Among the 3 million children (4 per-
cent of all U.S. children) not living with either parent, 54 percent
(1.7 million) live with grandparents, 21 percent live with other
relatives only, and 24 percent live with nonrelatives.18 While the
number of kids in foster care has declined substantially in the
past decade, there are still about 400,000 kids in foster care, many
of them entered care before age 6.19 Each year, on their 18th
birthday, more than 25,000 kids leave foster care without family
support; these young adults share an elevated risk of becoming
homeless, unemployed, and incarcerated. They are also at great
AP Images/Kim Kim Foster-Tobin

risk of developing physical, developmental, and mental health
challenges across their lifespan.20
Inadequate Education
The U.S. educational system seems to be failing many young
people. According to the Children’s Defense Fund:
Kids are often caught in the crossfire of marital strife and all
●● Nearly 60 percent of all fourth and eighth grade public school too often become its innocent victims. Family friend M argaret
students cannot read or compute at grade level. Fischer holds up a picture of Amanda Peake and her two
children in front of the family’s home in Red Bank, South
●● Only 78 percent of public school students graduated from
Carolina. Peake’s estranged boyfriend, Chancey Smith, shot
high school in four years. her, then her 9-year-old son Cameron, then her 6-year-old
●● Over half a million public school students drop out of grades daughter Sarah inside the family’s home in the community of
9–12 each year.21 Red Bank. Smith then turned the gun on himself.
Foster care is a trying time for
some youth. Here, a 17-year-old
girl in handcuffs is questioned
by a vice squad policeman in
Los Angeles about committing
prostitution. While the charge
of soliciting or loitering with the
intent to commit prostitution is a
misdemeanor, the young woman
will be held for 2 to 4 days. As a
minor, she was formally charged
with loitering with the intent to
engage in acts of prostitution.
The majority of juveniles arrested
for prostitution in Los Angeles
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

come from the city’s foster care
program. In South Central Los
Angeles, prostitution flourishes
and is often controlled by pimps
who are former Bloods or Crips
gang members.
These issues are interrelated and self-sustaining. Because reading proficiency is

an essential element for educational success, students who are problem readers are
at high risk of grade repetition and dropping out of school.
Educational problems are likely to hit the poor and minority kids the
hardest:
lmost three-quarters or more of fourth and eighth grade black and
A
Looking Back
●●
Hispanic public school students cannot read or compute at grade level.

to Aaliyah’s Story ●● One in 3 black students and 3 in 10 Hispanic and Native American/
Alaska Native students did not graduate from high school in the past
Housing is a major issue for many teens four years.
“aging out” of the system. Often, chil-
●● More than 1 in 6 black students received at least one out-of-school sus-
dren placed in alternative care settings,
pension compared to 1 in 50 Asian/Pacific Islander students and 1 in
such as foster homes or residential
20 white students.22
treatment centers, are not prepared to
live on their own when they turn 18 or Why the discrepancy? Poor minority-group children attend the most
are released from juvenile custody. underfunded schools, receive inadequate educational opportunities, and
Critical Thinking Discuss what can be have the fewest opportunities to achieve conventional success. 23 Racial
done to help kids in foster care be better and ethnic differences in education continue on past high school: among
prepared for adult life. Make a list of life young adults (ages 25 to 29), the percentage of European Americans who
skills that must be mastered. had attained at least a bachelor’s degree (40 percent) was two-and-a-half
times that of Hispanics (16 percent), and twice that of African Americans
(20 percent).
The problems faced by kids who do poorly in school do not end in ado-
lescence.24 Adults 25 years of age and older with less than a high school
Formed in 1985, the Children’s diploma earn 30 percent less than those who have earned a high school diploma.
Rights Council (CRC) is a High school graduation is the single most effective preventive strategy against adult
national nonprofit organization poverty. Today about 13 percent of American adults age 25 to 34 are not high school
based in Washington, D.C., graduates; about 31 percent have a college degree or more.
that works to ensure children
meaningful and continuing
contact with both their parents Child Abuse and Neglect
and extended family, regardless Millions of cases of child abuse and neglect are reported to state authorities each
of the parents’ marital status. year and caseworkers find that up to 700,000 children are legally abused; according
www.crckids.org. to most state and federal laws, child abuse is defined as any act (or failure to act) by
8 Chapter 1
a parent or caregiver who is responsible for the child’s welfare
that results in imminent risk or serious harm to a child’s health
and welfare due to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.25
There are enormous social and economic costs associated
with child abuse and neglect. Some costs are financial and di-
rectly related to maltreatment, such as hospitalization and medi-
cal treatment for injuries. Others are emotional, such as when
state authorities are forced to remove children from their home
and place them in foster care. Other costs are not immediate and
may develop when the abused child enters the teenage years:
lower academic achievement, substance abuse, mental health
issues, and criminality.
Social Media and the Internet

Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl, hanged herself
in a stairwell at her home after enduring months of torment
by her fellow students at South Hadley High School. Prince,
who had immigrated from Ireland, was taunted in the school’s
AP Images/TOBY TALBOT
hallways and bombarded with vulgar insults by a pack of kids
led by the ex-girlfriend of a boy she had briefly dated. As she
studied in the library on the last day of her life, she was openly
hounded and threatened physically while other students and
a teacher looked on and did nothing. In the aftermath of her
death, prosecutors accused two boys of statutory rape and four Not only are kids at risk of real-time bullying, but they may
girls of violating Prince’s civil rights and criminal harassment. be bullied in cyberspace by people they hardly know and
Most of these students were still in school, and some continued whose identity is hard to discover. Here, John Halligan
to post nasty remarks on Prince’s memorial Facebook page after shows the web page devoted to his son. Ryan was bullied
her death.26 for months online. Classmates sent the 13-year-old Essex
Adolescents like Phoebe Prince must deal with numerous Junction, Vermont, boy instant messages calling him gay.
He was threatened, taunted, and insulted incessantly by
problems related to emerging technologies and social media.
cyberbullies. Finally, Ryan killed himself. His father says he
Phoebe was a victim of cyberbullying: willful and repeated harm couldn’t take it anymore.
inflicted through the medium of electronic text. Cyberbullies
who are able to navigate the Net and utilize technology in a way
that allows them to harass others are in a position of power relative to a victim.
A bully can send harassing emails or instant messages; post obscene, insulting, and
slanderous messages on social networking sites; develop websites to promote and
disseminate defamatory content; or send harassing text messages via cell phone.27
It is difficult to get an accurate count of the number of teens who have e xperienced
cyberbullying. Researchers Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja have, over the
last decade, surveyed nearly 15,000 middle and high school students in 10 different
studies from nearly 100 different schools throughout the United States. They have cyberbullying Willful and
repeated harm inflicted through
found that overall, about 25 percent of the students have been cyberbullied at some
the medium of electronic text.
point in their lifetimes; about 9 percent said they were cyberbullied in the 30 days
preceding the survey. About 16 percent admitted that they had cyberbullied others cyberstalking Use of
at some point in their lifetimes (about 6 percent in the most recent 30 days). 28 the Internet, email, or other
Cyberbullying is not the only threat that today’s teens must be able to navi- electronic communications
gate. Some are now stalked via the Internet. Cyberstalking refers to the use of devices to stalk another person.
the Internet, email, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another Some cyberstalkers pursue
person. Some predatory adults pursue minors through online chat rooms, establish minors through online chat
a relationship with the child, and later make contact. Today, Internet predators are rooms; others harass their
more likely to develop relationships with at-risk adolescents and beguile underage victims electronically.
teenagers, rather than use coercion and violence. 29
sexting Sending sexually
Sometimes social media risks are self-imposed. Adolescents now have to worry explicit photos, images, text
that the compromising photos they send their boyfriends or girlfriends—a practice messages, or emails via a cell
called sexting—can have terrible repercussions. In 2008, Jesse Logan, an 18-year-old phone or other mobile device.
Ohio high school girl, made the mistake of sending nude pictures of herself to her
boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent them around to their schoolmates. As soon
The mission of the Children’s as the e-photos got into the hands of her classmates, they began harassing her, call-
Defense Fund is to “leave no ing her names, and destroying her reputation. Jesse soon became depressed and re-
child behind” and ensure every clusive, afraid to go to school, and in July 2008 she hanged herself in her bedroom.30
child a healthy start, a head While the sexting phenomenon has garnered national attention, there is some
start, a fair start, a safe start, question of how often teens actually engage in the distribution of sexually com-
and a moral start in life and a promising material. One survey of 1,560 Internet users ages 10 through 17 found
successful passage to adulthood that about 2.5 percent had appeared in or created nude or nearly nude pictures or
with the help of caring families videos and that 1 percent of these images contained sexually explicit nudity. 31 Of
and communities. The CDF tries the youth who participated in the survey, 7 percent said they had received nude or
to provide a strong, effective nearly nude images of others; few youth distributed these images. It is possible that
voice for kids who cannot vote, sexting is not as common as previously believed or that it was a fad that is quickly
lobby, or speak for themselves. fading.
www.childrensdefense.org
Is There Reason for Hope?

These social conditions have a significant impact on kids. Children are being polar-
ized into two distinct economic groups: those in affluent, two-earner, married-cou-
ple households and those in poor, single-parent households.32 Kids whose parents
divorce may increase their involvement in delinquency, especially if they have a
close bond with the parent who is forced to leave.33 They may turn to risky behavior
instead of traveling down a conventional life path.
C h ec kpo i nts Yet despite the many hazards faced by teens, there are some bright spots on the
horizon. Teenage birthrates nationwide have declined substantially during the past
✔✔ The problems of American decade, with the sharpest declines among African American girls. The teen abor-
youth have become a national tion rate has also dropped significantly. These data indicate that more young girls
concern and an important are using birth control and practicing safe sex. Fewer children with health risks are
subject of academic study. being born today than in 1990. This probably means that fewer women are drinking
✔✔ There are more than 75 million or smoking during pregnancy and that fewer are receiving late or no prenatal care.
youths in the United States, In addition, the number of children immunized against disease has increased during
and the number is expected the past two decades.
to rise. Education is still a problem area, but more parents are reading to their children,
✔✔ American youth are under a and math achievement is rising in grades 4 through 12. And more kids are going to
great deal of stress. They face college. College enrollment is now about 21 million students, an increase of almost
poverty, family problems, ur- 6 million since 2000.34 Women now make up a majority of college students. While
ban decay, inadequate edu- European Americans are more likely than black and Hispanic young adults to have
cation, teen pregnancy, and completed high school, the gap is rapidly closing. Increasing numbers and percent-
social conflict. ages of black and Hispanic students are attending college. Between 2000 and 2012,
✔✔ Kids take risks that get them the percentage of college students who were African American rose from about
in trouble. 12 to 15 percent, and the percentage of students who were Hispanic rose from about
✔✔ Adolescents must deal with 10 to 15 percent. Almost 30 percent of the adult population in the United States
f a m i l y, e d u c a t i o n a l , a n d now have college degrees.
health issues. They must learn There are also indications that youngsters may be rejecting alcohol, cigarettes,
to cope with technological and hard drugs in ever-increasing numbers. While teen smoking and drinking rates
age problems such as cyber- remain high, they are significantly lower than 30 years ago.35 Although these are
bullying and sexting. encouraging signs, many problem areas remain, and the improvement of adolescent
life continues to be a national goal. ch eckpoi nts
Juvenile Delinquency
juvenile delinquency The problems of youth in modern society have long been associated with juvenile
Participation in illegal behavior delinquency, criminal behavior engaged in by minors. The study of juvenile delin-
by a minor who falls under a quency is important both because of the damage suffered by its victims and the prob-
statutory age limit. lems faced by its perpetrators. About 1.7 million youths under age 18 are arrested
each year for crimes ranging from loitering to murder.36 Though most juvenile law
10 Chapter 1
violations are minor, some young offenders are extremely dangerous and
violent. More than 800,000 youths belong to street gangs. Youths involved
in multiple serious criminal acts, referred to as repeat or chronic juvenile
offenders, are considered a serious social problem. State juvenile authori-
ties must deal with these offenders while responding to a range of other Looking Back
social problems, including child abuse and neglect, school crime and van- to Aaliyah’s Story
dalism, family crises, and drug abuse. The cost to society of these high-rate
offenders can be immense. The “worst of the worst” offenders, ones who Many juvenile delinquents commit
have committed more than 50 crimes, cost society an estimated $1.7 million crimes while under the influence of al-
by the time they reached their mid-20s.37 cohol or drugs or because they are ad-
Clearly, there is an urgent need for strategies to combat juvenile delin- dicted and need to support their habit.
quency. But formulating effective strategies demands a solid understanding If this is the case, should these juve-
of the causes of delinquency. Is it a function of psychological abnormal- niles be court-ordered into a treatment
ity? A reaction against destructive social conditions? The product of a dis- program?
turbed home life? Does serious delinquent behavior occur only in urban
Critical Thinking Draw up a statement
areas among lower-class youths? Or is it spread throughout the social struc-
of activities that can be used to pre-
ture? What are the effects of family life, substance abuse, school experi-
vent alcohol and drug abuse in the teen
ences, and peer relations?
population.
The study of delinquency also involves the analysis of the juvenile justice
system—the law enforcement, court, and correctional agencies designed to
treat youthful offenders. How should police deal with minors who violate
the law? What are the legal rights of children? What kinds of correctional
programs are most effective with delinquent youths? How useful are educational, LO2 List the major events in
community, counseling, and vocational development programs? Is it true, as some the history of childhood.
critics claim, that most efforts to rehabilitate young offenders are doomed to fail-
ure? The reaction to juvenile delinquency frequently divides the public. While some
people favor policies that provide rehabilitation of violent offenders, other
chronic juvenile
Americans are wary of teenage hoodlums and gangs, and believe that young offend-
offenders (also known
ers should be treated no differently than mature felons.38 Should the juvenile justice
as chronic delinquent
system be more concerned about the long-term effects of punishment? Can even
offenders, chronic
the most violent teenager one day be rehabilitated?
delinquents, or chronic
In summary, the scientific study of delinquency requires understanding the na-
recidivists) Youths who
ture, extent, and cause of youthful law violations and the methods devised for their
have been arrested four or more
control. We also need to study environmental and social issues, including substance
times during their minority and
abuse, child abuse and neglect, education, and peer relations. All of these aspects of
perpetuate a striking majority of
juvenile delinquency will be discussed in this text. We begin, however, with a look
serious criminal acts. This small
back to the development of the concept of childhood, how children were first iden-
group, known as the “chronic 6
tified as a unique group with their own special needs and behaviors, and how a sys-
percent,” is believed to engage
tem of justice developed to treat and care for needy, at-risk youth.
in a significant portion of all
delinquent behavior; these
youths do not age out of crime
The Development of Childhood but continue their criminal
behavior into adulthood.
Treating children as a distinct social group with special needs and behavior is a rela- juvenile justice system
tively new concept. Only for the past 350 years has any formal mechanism existed The segment of the justice
to care for even the neediest children. In Europe during the Middle Ages (c.e. 700– system, including law
1500), the concept of childhood as we know it today did not exist. In the pater- enforcement officers, the
nalistic family of the time, the father exercised complete control over his wife and courts, and correctional
children.39 Children who did not obey were subject to severe physical punishment, agencies, that is designed to
even death. treat youthful offenders.
paternalistic family A
family style wherein the father
Custom and Practice in the Middle Ages is the final authority on all family
During the Middle Ages, as soon as they were physically capable, children of all matters and exercises complete
classes were expected to take on adult roles. Boys learned farming or a skilled trade control over his wife and children.
such as masonry or metalworking; girls aided in food preparation or household
The Development of Childhood 11
During the Middle Ages, children
like those shown in this sixteenth-
The Granger Collection, NYC

century woodcut were expected
to be obedient and compliant or
face the wrath of their parents,
who would not hesitate to use
corporal punishment.
maintenance.40 Some peasant youths went into domestic or agricultural service

on the estates of powerful landowners or became apprenticed in trades or crafts. 41
Children of the landholding classes also assumed adult roles at an early age. At age
7 or 8, boys born to landholding families were either sent to a monastery or cathe-
dral school or were sent to serve as squires, or assistants, to experienced knights.
At age 21, young men of the knightly classes received their own knighthood and
returned home to live with their parents. Girls were educated at home and married
in their early teens. A few were taught to read, write, and do sufficient mathematics
to handle household accounts in addition to typical female duties, such as supervis-
ing servants.
Some experts, most notably Philippe Aries, have described the medieval child
as a “miniature adult” who began to work and accept adult roles at an early age
and was treated with great cruelty.42 In many families, especially the highborn,
newborns were handed over to wet nurses who fed and cared for them during the
first two years of life; parents had little contact with their children. Discipline was
severe. Young children of all classes were subjected to stringent rules and regula-
tions. Children were beaten for any sign of disobedience or ill temper, and many
would be considered abused by today’s standards. Children were expected to under-
take responsibilities early in their lives, sharing in the work of siblings and parents.
Those thought to be suffering from disease or impaired were often abandoned to
churches, orphanages, or foundling homes.43
The Development of Concern for Children

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a number of developments
in England heralded the march toward the recognition of children’s rights. Among
them were changes in family style and childcare, the English Poor Laws, the appren-
ticeship movement, and the role of the chancery court.44
Changes in Family Structure. Family structure began to change after the Middle Ages.
Extended families, which were created over centuries, gave way to the nuclear fam-
ily structure with which we are familiar today. It became more common for mar-
riage to be based on love rather than parental consent and paternal dominance.
This changing concept of marriage from an economic arrangement to an emotional
12 Chapter 1
commitment also began to influence the way children were treated. Although par-
ents still rigidly disciplined their children, they formed closer ties and had greater
concern for the well-being of their offspring.
Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the work of such philosophers as
Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke launched a new age for childhood and the family. 45
Their vision produced a period known as the Enlightenment, which stressed a hu-
manistic view of life, freedom, family, reason, and law. These new beliefs influenced
the family. The father’s authority was tempered, discipline became more relaxed,
and the expression of affection became more commonplace. Upper- and middle-
class families began to devote attention to childrearing, and the status of children
was advanced.
As a result of these changes, children began to emerge as a distinct group with
independent needs and interests. Serious questions arose over the treatment of
children in school. Restrictions were placed on the use of the whip, and in some
schools academic assignments or the loss of privileges replaced corporal punish-
ment. Despite such reforms, punishment was still primarily physical, and schools
continued to mistreat children.
Poor Laws. As early as 1535, the English passed statutes known as Poor Laws.46
These laws allowed for the appointment of overseers to place destitute or neglected
children as servants in the homes of the affluent, where they were trained in agri-
cultural, trade, or domestic services. The Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601 created a
system of church wardens and overseers who, with the consent of justices of the
peace, identified vagrant, delinquent, and neglected children and put them to work.
Often this meant placing them in poorhouses or workhouses or apprenticing them
to masters.
The Apprenticeship Movement. Apprenticeship existed throughout almost the entire

history of Great Britain.47 Under this practice, children were placed in the care of
adults who trained them in specific skills, such as being a blacksmith or a farrier
(a shoer of horses). Voluntary apprentices were bound out by parents or guard-
ians in exchange for a fee. Legal authority over the child was then transferred to
the apprentice’s master. The system helped parents avoid the costs and respon-
sibilities of childrearing. Involuntary apprentices were compelled by the legal
authorities to serve a master until they were 21 or older. The master–apprentice
relationship was similar to the parent–child relationship in that the master had
complete authority over the apprentice and could have agreements enforced Poor Laws English statutes
by local magistrates. that allowed the courts to
appoint overseers for destitute
Chancery Court. Throughout Great Britain in the Middle Ages, chancery courts were and neglected children, allowing
established to protect property rights and seek equitable solutions to disputes and placement of these children as
conflicts. Eventually, their authority was extended to the welfare of children in cases servants in the homes of the
involving the guardianship of orphans. This included safeguarding their property affluent.
and inheritance rights and appointing a guardian to protect them until they reached
chancery courts Court
the age of majority.
proceedings created in
The courts operated on the proposition that children were under the protective
fifteenth-century England to
control of the king; thus, the Latin phrase parens patriae was used, which refers
oversee the lives of highborn
to the role of the king as the father of his country. The concept was first used by
minors who were orphaned or
English kings to establish their right to intervene in the lives of the children of their
otherwise could not care for
vassals.48 As time passed, the monarchy used parens patriae more and more to
themselves.
justify its intervention in the lives of families and children.49
parens patriae The power
of the state to act on behalf of
Childhood in America the child and provide care and
While England was using its chancery courts and Poor Laws to care for children in protection equivalent to that of a
need, the American colonies were developing similar concepts. The colonies were parent.
a haven for people looking for opportunities denied them in England and Europe.
The Development of Childhood 13
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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eTextbook 978-1305577411 Juvenile

Delinquency: The Core

Preface xiii The Status Offender in the Juvenile Justice

Individual Views of Sociological Views

of Delinquency: Life Gender Patterns in Delinquency 162

Gender and Delinquency 155

The School in Modern American Society 239

Peers and Delinquency: Correlates of School Failure 247

Juvenile Corrections: Future of Juvenile Corrections 412

Goals and Objectives

Organization of the Text

What’s New in this Edition

Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives

What Does This Mean to Me?

Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention/Intervention/Treatment

Questions for Review

Applying What You Have Learned

For the Instructor

CHAPTER OUTLINE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The Risks and Rewards of Adolescence

The Problems of Youth 3

Teen Risk Taking

The Problems of Youth 5

Mario Tama/Getty Images News/Getty Images

On February 18, 2015, Celeste

to affordable child care so that

Foster Care System

AP Images/Kim Kim Foster-Tobin

The Problems of Youth 7

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

These issues are interrelated and self-sustaining. Because reading proficiency is

Hispanic public school students cannot read or compute at grade level.

Social Media and the Internet

The Problems of Youth 9

Is There Reason for Hope?

The Development of Childhood 11

The Granger Collection, NYC

maintenance.40 Some peasant youths went into domestic or agricultural service

The Development of Concern for Children

The Apprenticeship Movement. Apprenticeship existed throughout almost the entire

The Development of Childhood 13

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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