Juvenile Delinquency. New Perspectives from "The Wire" and "All God's Children"

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: A-, University at Albany, State University of New York, language: English, abstract: The HBO series The Wire and Fox Butterfield s book All God s Children are two helpful media sources that provide fictional and non-fictional examples of juvenile delinquency. When discussing the many theories that are used in explaining juvenile delinquency, it is useful to be able to look to both the series and the book for realistic examples of delinquent juveniles and their environments. Visual representation of delinquent environments as provided by The Wire, along with first-hand accounts of delinquent youths as provided by All God s Children yields a better overall understanding of juvenile delinquency. The examples provided can then be taken and used as samples to which juvenile delinquency theories can be applied. The fact that both the book and series capture numerous perspectives helps to expose some of the issues that hinder the success of the juvenile system. The amount of detail provided by both the book and series allows students to look back on the juveniles exemplified and use them as cases to apply all they have learned on how to prevent and control juvenile delinquency.