Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Juvenile crime in the early nineteenth century—as now—provoked high measures of despair. The respectable classes believed that if children and young people who were "at risk" were not saved and readjusted to decent society, they would inevitably mature into hardened criminals. Heather Shore's focus is the "juvenile offender," a term that only achieved its present currency and the status of a label in the early nineteenth century. In this lively and engagingly written book, she builds on the well-tested foundations of published research and offers, if not a new interpretative field, then certainly a new collection of primary source materials from which conclusions can be reached. Shore explores shifts in the attitudes of the establishment toward juvenile delinquency in the early nineteenth century but, more significantly, she also examines the lives of the young offenders themselves. Although the study is largely centered on nineteenth-century London, it has wider and more contemporary resonances, all of which emanate from Shore's main purpose: to incorporate the young offender's point of view in a revised examination of juvenile crime.

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Shore creates a sensible structure for her thesis by skillfully juggling theory and evidence. The introduction sets out her main intentions, the sources used, and the historiography. The main thrust of the book challenges traditional middle-class perceptions about juvenile crime by setting them against the testimony of young criminals. Thereafter the debates surrounding the treatment of those same offenders are rehearsed and reevaluated. Various explanations are given for the causes of crime, many of which sound uncannily familiar to contemporary ears: inadequate parenting, inadequate education, lack of religious training, and the degrading effects of popular culture.

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