Power without Parents: Juvenile Justice in a Postmodern Society

It is tempting at times to speak of a general crisis of childhood in America. We hear and read of record numbers of children living in poverty and unprecedented levels of violence against children and adolescents. With astounding frequency, stories emerge of child abuse in the nation's churches, schools, and day-care centers. But this characterization of a general crisis leaps over the specific contexts in which these disturbing images are arising and mistakes the democracy of the daily news for a common fate in America.

Such a discussion also risks ignoring the specific technologies of power that are in play, and their genealogies.