Andrea Cox: Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017, 4181 pp, Series: Critical issues in crime and society, LCCN: 2017007405

Excerpt

Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People was an analysis of the failings of the juvenile justice system through the examination of the realities of the young people who enter, remain, and attempt to exit the system. In order to make reforms in juvenile justice, it must begin with the exchange between policies and practice. Legislatures, law enforcement, and other legal actors push for these “rehabilitation” programs that have shown to be causing more harm than not. The overarching argument that Andrea Cox maintains throughout her book describes the current interventions used by the system and their opposing force of pushing for change yet pulling from it by imposing social barriers upon adolescents in the form of unavailable access to the necessities required to stay reformed. She establishes this through supporting arguments including this abstract idea of being “ungovernable” and “unworthy,” as well as emphasizing the problematic nature of the punitive philosophy that is ultimately designed to be bias against impoverished kids. She interviews adolescents who are serving time or who had once served time in a juvenile facility and gives insight to her arguments through their stories. This book explicitly details the tragedies that are inevitably present in the confinement of young people and the harsh cycle, or vice, that they are unable to escape. …