FYS 21 Histories of Incarcerated Youth
Can young lawbreakers be rehabilitated, or should they be removed from society to prevent them endangering others? Since the 1820s, reformers, philanthropists, and state officials throughout the Western world have wrestled with the question of how to reduce juvenile crime and turn delinquents into good citizens. The institutions and policies they created reflected their conceptions of young criminals, their backgrounds and families, their gender and their race. How did experts develop a body of knowledge about at-risk youth, what practices did they put into place, and what spaces did they build to house and contain the children? How have the children themselves responded, developing a sense of their own identity through compliance with or resistance to reformers' intent? Reformers and policymakers adapted their solutions to national and local contexts, but they also participated in an international network of experts from Europe and North America that debated ideas and offered new models for responding to juvenile delinquency. We will explore ideas, practices, and institutions created to save juvenile delinquents, presented in reports and studies as well as fiction and film. Students will encounter a variety of primary and secondary sources from Britain, France, the USSR, and the USA from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Note that the course will sometimes address difficult or distressing subject matter. Open only to first-year frosh.