The first chapter focuses on the history of childhood and the legal concept of delinquency and status offending, followed by a chapter that addresses the measurement of delinquent behavior, along with trends and patterns in teen crime and the correlates of delinquency, including race, gender, class, age, and chronic offending. The third chapter covers views of delinquency causation that emphasize the individual offender, with attention to choice, biological, and psychological theories. The fourth chapter reviews sociological theories of delinquency, which hold that economic, cultural, and environmental influences control delinquent behavior. This is followed by a chapter that reviews development theories, which maintain that events occurring during the adolescent's life course influence and control behavior. A chapter on gender and delinquency explores the sex-based differences that are believed to account for the gender patterns in the delinquency rate. The family's influence on delinquency is reviewed in the seventh chapter, with attention to child abuse and its prevention. Three chapters consider gang and group delinquency, schools and delinquency, and drug use and delinquency. The remaining chapters focus on the development and operation of the juvenile justice system, including the emergence of State control over children, police work with juveniles, the juvenile court process, and juvenile corrections. Various learning tools accompany each chapter. Chapter notes and name and subject indexes