The author argues that there are discrepancies between the familiar images of youth and what is true about youth. Public and institutional perceptions of delinquency in Canadian society are a consequence of complex configurations within culture, law, and the political economy. Delinquency (the text) constitutes and is constituted by relations of power (subtext) that are mediated by cultural forms of the media (intertexts). The culture of juvenile justice, filtered through statistics and images, gives priority to the ideology of individualism, corporate power, and the authority of the state. Obsessive attention to the moral regulation of juveniles is legitimated by the institutions of the law, media, work, and education, which focus on the importance of discipline and precise behaviors. Legal-materialist values based on the sovereignty of individualism tend to view juveniles as deviants from the dominant ideology. The "official" versions of delinquency are manipulated by the numerous stakeholders for self-serving reasons. This chapter critiques Canada's Young Offenders Act and concludes that it is a scapegoat for Canada's social problems and constitutes a short-term response to the ill- founded perception that youth crime is increasing. 96 references