TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - "Society must be protected from the child": the construction of U.S. juvenile detention as necessary and normal
JO  - Critical criminology
A1  - Myers, R. Ross
SP  - 395
EP  - 407
VL  - 20
IS  - 4
N2  - Scholarship on televised representations of juvenile punishment is missing from the literature. By way of an ethnographic content analysis of forty US representations, the current work fills this void. Through three related themes, I argue that these representations paint the US system, one unmatched in either size or punitiveness, as a necessary and normal social institution. First, coverage depicts detained youth as worthy of incarceration through a focus on their supposed violent nature and rationality. Second, it normalizes the practice of juvenile incarceration by tacitly accepting harsh custodial tactics. Finally, by using detention centers as backdrops for comedy and drama, representations relegate juvenile justice to a position outside the political arena. This work serves as a reminder that in the age of mass incarceration, it is not only media moments that incite fear or spur panic that are of importance: those that normalize the peculiar policies of the United States may be just as consequential. KW: Juvenile justice; Juvenile delinquency;<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1205-8629
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10612-012-9156-1
ID  - ref1
ER  -