ABSTRACT
We begin, as I have explained, with an emphasis on childhood and its vulnerabilities. Although we follow the probationers into whatever concerns them—parents or peers, Frederick Douglass or Malcolm X—sooner or later our reading brings us to the question of how people learn what they need to know in life, and how much of that knowledge comes through compulsion or punishment, aimed at instilling discipline or exacting obedience at home, in school, and on the streets.
