ABSTRACT
The previous chapter discussed the social construction of childhood and adolescence in the context of the needs of an emerging, developing and consolidating mass society modernity and attempts to control the socialisation and discipline of this problematic population not least in the interests of industrial capitalism. This chapter tells the story of the creation of a juvenile justice response to those young people who had transgressed against the law of the land. It is ostensibly the story of a transition from a criminal justice response, which operated predominantly in accordance with rational actor model criminological principles, to one prescribed by treatment-oriented predestined actor model principles. It is, significantly, a story told in the context of repeated societal concerns and panics about the extent of offending by children and young people and popular demands that something is done about it.
