Courting Kids: Inside an Experimental Youth Court (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780814709467)

Despite being labeled as adults, the approximately 200,000 youth under the age of 18 who are now prosecuted as adults each year in criminal court are still adolescents, and the contradiction of their legal labeling creates numerous problems and challenges. In Courting Kids Carla Barrett takes us behind the scenes of a unique judicial experiment called the Manhattan Youth Part, a specialized criminal court set aside for youth prosecuted as adults in New York City. Focusing on the lives of those coming through and working in the courtroom, Barrett's ethnography is a study of a microcosm that reflects the costs, challenges, and consequences the "tough on crime" age has had, especially for male youth of color. She demonstrates how the court, through creative use of judicial discretion and the cultivation of an innovative courtroom culture, developed a set of strategies for handling "adult-juvenile " cases that embraced, rather than denied, defendants' adolescence.

Author: Carla J. Barrett
ISBN-10: 081470946X
ISBN-13: 9780814709467
Publisher: New York University Press
Language: English
Published: 12/03/2012
Pages: 220
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.63d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 01/25/2013 pg. 17