Who gets a childhood? : race and juvenile justice in twentieth-century Texas /

In 2007, the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) was at the center of an unfolding scandal involving the sexual abuse of teenage girls in its custody. In this timely and insightful study of juvenile justice in Texas, historian Bush (Texas A&M Univ.-San Antonio) establishes that recent trouble as the latest in a series of difficulties that have plagued the state's juvenile justice system since its founding at the end of the 19th century. The predecessor of the TYC, the Texas State Juvenile Training School, opened its doors in January 1889, the fruit of a three-year Woman's Christian Temperance Union campaign to separate juvenile from adult offenders in the Texas penal system. The new facility was, in theory, a place for the rehabilitation of youthful offenders through work and education. In reality, incarceration and brutality won out over the enlightened efforts of reformers again and again, culminating (hopefully) in a scandal of corruption, violence, and sexual abuse that surfaced in the TYC in 2007. Bush weaves the compelling story of this 110-year conflict between advocates of imprisonment and the proponents of rehabilitation at this troubled institution, observing that this is a story repeated nationwide as the US struggles to address the issue of juvenile justice. Summing Up:: Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries. C. D. Wintz Texas Southern University