ABSTRACT
The choice of starting point for a historical review is always likely to be seen as arbitrary in some respects. This is no less the case in the present context, because the interest in the problem behaviour of young people can be traced back over centuries, if not millennia (Pearson 1983). It is equally clear that recurrent themes and challenges have been identified over the course of time (see Thorpe et al. 1980, for example). There is, therefore, a need to offer some justification for the decision to begin this story around the beginning of the 1980s.
