ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines organized systems of delinquency control and compares the police systems in two different cities. It provides systematic differences between the occupational groups that are often most involved in the control of delinquency: the police, juvenile court judges, probation officers, and psychiatrists. The book aims to explicate some of the problems that arise when persons working from different perspectives and ideologies confront one another in the course of their efforts to control delinquency. It examines the actual relations between different agencies involved in a large delinquency-prevention project and some detail the reactions of persons who failed to receive treatment. The book describes the organization of inmate attitudes toward the outside world and provides broader study of the impact of institutions on youthful inmates; the results at this time are based on the inmates' reactions early in their confinement.
