| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 225 words from this article are provided below; about 409 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Children and the Criminal Law in Connecticut, 1635–1855: Changing Perceptions of Childhood. By Nancy Hathaway Steenburg. (New York: Routledge, 2005. viii, 262 pp. $80.00, ISBN 0-415-97180-2.)
In order to analyze legal definitions and treatment of children, Nancy Hathaway Steenburg read every court record produced by New London County from the beginning in 1639 to 1855, the year the Connecticut Reform School for Boys began operation. With participants in court actions not always identified by age, only 3 percent of cases definitively involved a person under the age of twenty-one. In addition, she surveyed the statutory treatment of children in the records of the Connecticut General Assembly. Important as well is a two-volume treatise, published in 1795–1796, by Zephaniah Swift.	1
The author organizes the book topically rather than chronologically. The first three chapters cover the standard categories of crimes against property, crimes against persons, and crimes against private and public order. Physical and sexual abuses of children are handled in the following chapters. The concluding chapter examines the nineteenth-century turn from retribution to rehabilitation, highlighted by the opening of the state reform school. Within chapters, the material is also organized by categories of crime. The advantage of this topical approach is that the reader gets a comprehensive sense of the involvement of the young in the law and the courts.	. . .

There are about 409 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.