Reviews : Children who Break the Law or Everybody Does It Sarah Curtis Waterside Press, 1999; pp240; £18.00, pbk
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059904600420 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| Author | Susan Ashmore |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
emphasis on black people of African-
Caribbean descent when earlier statistics in
the handbook have told us that the
majority of the black population in the
west country is of Asian descent.
A
further problem with the examples
used is that there is too much reliance on
Syd Jeffers’ research for the Inner London
Probation Service; consequently the same
quotes crop up again and again. A
large
proportion of quotations and other
information are either poorly referenced or
not referenced at all, either in the main
text or in the book list. Other gripes
included describing feminist works from
Children who Break the Law
1972 and 1981 as &dquo;current&dquo;; the use of the
phrase &dquo;fiercely protective&dquo; in describing
or Everybody Does It
single parent African -Caribbean women;
Sarah Curtis
and the switch from &dquo;we&dquo; to &dquo;I&dquo; in the
Waterside Press, 1999; pp240;
same paragraph. These could be viewed as
£18.00, pbk
minor faults, but when they re-appear
throughout the handbook, they become
Sarah Curtis opens her book by
intensely irritating.
presenting the reader with several case
The book sets out to avoid being
studies, which highlight the kind of lives
patronising and discriminatory, but then is
of young people lead. It is unfortunate
guilty of the very things that it tries to
that they are from similar backgrounds.
avoid, namely devoting one page to
Although at times a little laboured these
gypsies and travellers in the section on
studies give us a genuine insight into
anti-racism in the courts. This sat
why children offend and some of the
uncomfortably with the tone of the book
effective practices they have experienced
and was strange given that the book
through respective Youth Justice Teams
describes the origins of gypsies as
and Social Service Departments. In
Asian.
interviews with parents, it is again
There are a number of faults with
highlighted that these are people
the handbook but it is well-intentioned
experiencing similar...
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