ABSTRACT
Rates of serious violence and incarceration remain extremely high in many US neighbourhoods marked by high rates of poverty. Treatment and service programmes often encourage imprisoned young people to change themselves rather than criticize the system. In contrast to such individualizing approaches, a growing number of organizations in the US encourage marginalized young people to situate their personal struggles in a broader political and economic context ‒ and to act on that consciousness by campaigning for educational, economic and justice-system reform. This chapter draws on a larger study based on interviews and site visits with adult staff members at 12 such organizations in the US. Overall, it demonstrates the importance of these organizations for the field of criminology and the current political moment.
