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“FOR THEIR OWN GOOD”: CLASS INTERESTS AND THE CHILD SAVING MOVEMENT IN MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, 1900–1917
Author(s) -
SHELDEN RANDALL G.,
OSBORNE LYNN T.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1989.tb01053.x
Subject(s) - memphis , neglect , movement (music) , economic justice , control (management) , criminology , class (philosophy) , dependency (uml) , juvenile , social control , psychology , sociology , political science , law , engineering , economics , computer science , management , philosophy , botany , genetics , systems engineering , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , biology , aesthetics
This paper addresses the question of whether the “child saving” movement, a precursor of the modern juvenile justice system. was a benevolent movement to “save” delinquent youths or, as Platt (1977) contends, a class‐based movement to extend social control to the children of the poor. Analysis of the child saving movement in Memphis, Tennessee, using historical data, provides support for the thesis advanced by Platt. The evidence collected here strongly suggests that it was the upper‐class citizens who were in the forefront of the movement in Memphis. Also, social control was extended over a wide range of behavior (mostly noncriminal) of children and youths, particularly morals offenses and dependency/neglect cases. In Memphis the juvenile justice system was created to control and regulate the children of the poor, not to save them.