The book attempts to determine what delinquency is, how much there is, whether it is increasing, and who is most likely to commit delinquent acts. It describes the three leading theories of delinquency and the research inspired by those theories. That research examines the extent to which delinquency is caused by individual traits, family factors, school factors, delinquent peers, and gang members. The book further considers the effects of the mass media, religion, the nature of one's community, drugs, and guns. The book considers what police, juvenile courts, and juvenile correctional agencies do to control delinquency, in particular, how the agencies operate, how effective they are, how they could be more effective, and the extent to which they discriminate against certain groups. The book describes four general multiagency strategies for controlling delinquency: the "get tough" strategies of deterrence and incapacitation and the strategies of rehabilitation and prevention. In the course of describing how earlier research was carried out, the book describes how criminologists do such things as estimate the extent of delinquency, determine whether some factor causes delinquency, and whether some program or policy is effective at reducing delinquency. Tables, figures, notes, references, indexes