Girl Trouble: Female Delinquency in English Canada

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Between The Lines, 2002 - History - 213 pages
The book examines the history of female delinquency in Canada from the intitial years of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, passed in 1908, to the first major, sustained critiques of the Act's usefulness in in the 1960s. Three themes are explored. What underlying material structures, social conditions and class norms shaped the very definition of delinquency under the Juvenile Delinquents Act and how was that definition gendered? What were the prescribed legal and social cures for girls' wrongdoing, and how successful were they? Last, how did girls and their families understand and react to their designation as delinquent, and to their experiences in court, probation and training school. To understand girls' conflicts with the law, their delinquency is described within the daily, lived economic, and social circumstances of their lives and contemporary understandings of 'normal' and 'deviant' behaviour, and illustrated by quotations and examples drawn from records and interviews. The experiences of Native and immigrant girls are also examined.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Defining Delinquency
13
An Ounce of Prevention
41
Judging Girls in Court
69
Treating the Intractable
103
Race Gender and Delinquency
144
Conclusion
171
Notes
181
Index
208
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About the author (2002)

Joan Sangster is a professor of History and Women's Studies at Trent University, in Peterborough.

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