The Jack-Roller and the Life History Method

Notes on the Chicago School’s Clifford Shaw and Howard Becker’s Humanistic Narrative of Young Male and Female Delinquents in Different Ages

Bibliographic Data

ID12477273
AuthorsBlackman (0000-0001-5431-6690, Canterbury Christ Church University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue3
Pages213-229
Publication date2021-10-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueYoung (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1103-3088 • E-ISSN: 1741-3222
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/11033088211046168
OpenAlexW3207313528
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited33

Clifford Shaw’s (1930) The Jack-Roller is a landmark study of naturalism, ethnography and crime. It is the ‘own story’ of Stanley—a young delinquent in Chicago. Shaw’s series of ethnographic studies on delinquency sought to humanize deviance in opposition to pathological understandings of delinquency. The article looks on the representation of crimes committed and punishment received by young male and female delinquents. Shaw’s argument focuses on structural inequalities and poverty as the cause of deviance; as a result, female delinquency was not explained by sexual promiscuity, although he failed to recognize young women’s vulnerabilities. The second edition of The Jack-Roller introduced by Howard Becker (1966, Introduction. The Jack-Roller: A delinquent boy’s own story, pp. v–xviii) redefined Shaw’s study within the symbolic interactionist tradition. From the 1950s, Shaw and Becker disagreed over the writing of the deviant’s ‘own story,’ the control of the narrative and the authorial voice. The article adds to the literature on narrative, female deviance and youth delinquency

Criminology · Deviance (statistics · Juvenile delinquency · Literature · Narrative · Opposition (politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

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Open DOIOpen Access