Dispensing with Justice

Peter Prescott, book critic of Newsweek, wrote this study of the Juvenile Justice System in New York City, knowing and keeping in mind that he was not qualified to discuss either the causes of juvenile crime or the means of preventing it. He intended simply to portray the process of justice, without offering solutions.

I wanted particularly to write about some aspect of the condition of human rights in our society today. It seemed to me that if, as I suspect, these rights are not a stable commodity, children (who are often held by our society to be marginal citizens) might have the most difficulty maintaining theirs. Perhaps the best place to watch these rights deteriorating would be a courtroom from which both ...

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