The Criminalization of Black Children: Race, Gender, and Delinquency in Chicago’s Juvenile Justice System, 1899–1945 (Justice, Power, and Politics)

In the late nineteenth century, progressive reformers recoiled at the prospect of the justice system punishing children as adults. Advocating that children's inherent innocence warranted fundamentally different treatment, reformers founded the nation's first juvenile court in Chicago in 1899. Yet amid an influx of new African American arrivals to the city during the Great Migration, notions of inherent childhood innocence and juvenile justice were circumscribed by race. In documenting how blackness became a marker of criminality that overrode the potential protections the status of "child" could have bestowed, Tera Eva Agyepong shows the entanglements between race and the state's transition to a more punitive form of juvenile justice. In this important study, Agyepong expands the narrative of racialized criminalization in America, revealing that these patterns became embedded in a justice system originally intended to protect children. In doing so, she also complicates our understanding of the nature of migration and what it meant to be black and living in Chicago in the early twentieth century. In This Book, Tera Agyepong Explores The Vital Role Children Played In The Construction Of Ideas Of Criminality In Early Twentieth Century Chicago. For African American Children, Youthfulness--far From Being A Marker Of Purity Or Innocence--was A Factor In Subjecting Them To Particular Institutional, Social, And Economic Vulnerabilities At The Hands Of The Juvenile Justice System. At A Moment When Blackness Was Becoming A Marker Of Criminality, Their Race Overrode The Potential Protections Their Status As Children Could Have Provided Them-- Contingent Childhood : Black Children And The Making Of Juvenile Justice -- Race-ing Innocence : The Emergence Of Juvenile Justice And The Making Of Black Delinquency -- Boundaries Of Innocence : Race, The Emergence Of Cook County Juvenile Court, And Punitive Transitions -- Constructing A Black Female Delinquent : Race, Gender, And The Criminalization Of African American Girls At The Illinois Training School For Girls At Geneva -- Flight, Fright, And Freedom : Delinquency And The Construction Of Black Masculinity At The Training School For Boys At St. Charles. Tera Eva Agyepong. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 163-172) And Index. Cover ......Page 1 Contents ......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction. Contingent Childhood: Black Children and the Making of Juvenile Justice ......Page 18 Chapter One. Race-ing Innocence: The Emergence of Juvenile Justice and the Making of Black Delinquency ......Page 24 Chapter Two. Boundaries of Innocence: Race, the Emergence of Cook County Juvenile Court, and Punitive Transitions ......Page 55 Chapter Three. Constructing a Black Female Delinquent: Race, Gender, and the Criminalization of African American Girls at the Illinois Training School for Girls at Geneva ......Page 87 Chapter Four. Flight, Fright, and Freedom: Delinquency and the Construction of Black Masculinity at the Training School for Boys at St. Charles ......Page 114 Epilogue......Page 150 Notes......Page 156 Bibliography......Page 180 B ......Page 190 C ......Page 191 G ......Page 192 I ......Page 193 M ......Page 194 P ......Page 195 S ......Page 196 Y ......Page 197 Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Contingent Childhood: Black Children and the Making of Juvenile Justice -- Chapter One. Race-ing Innocence: The Emergence of Juvenile Justice and the Making of Black Delinquency -- Chapter Two. Boundaries of Innocence: Race, the Emergence of Cook County Juvenile Court, and Punitive Transitions -- Chapter Three. Constructing a Black Female Delinquent: Race, Gender, and the Criminalization of African American Girls at the Illinois Training School for Girls at Geneva -- Chapter Four. Flight, Fright, and Freedom: Delinquency and the Construction of Black Masculinity at the Training School for Boys at St. Charles -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y "In this book, Tera Agyepong explores the vital role children played in the construction of ideas of criminality in early twentieth century Chicago. For African American children, youthfulness--far from being a marker of purity or innocence--was a factor in subjecting them to particular institutional, social, and economic vulnerabilities at the hands of the juvenile justice system. At a moment when blackness was becoming a marker of criminality, their race overrode the potential protections their status as children could have provided them"-- Provided by publisher "In this book, Tera Agyepong explores the vital role children played in the construction of ideas of criminality in early twentieth century Chicago. For African American children, youthfulness ... far from being a marker of purity or innocence ... was a factor in subjecting them to particular institutional, social, and economic vulnerabilities at the hands of the juvenile justice system. At a moment when blackness was becoming a marker of criminality, their race overrode the potential protections their status as children could have provided them" ..