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

Journal article

Blackman, Shane 2021. 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. YOUNG. 30 (3), pp. 213 - 229. https://doi.org/10.1177/11033088211046168

Publication dates
Authors	Blackman, Shane
Abstract	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.
Keywords	Deviance; Ethnography; Chicago School; Female delinquency; Crime
Year	2021
Journal	YOUNG
Journal citation	30 (3), pp. 213 - 229
Publisher	SAGE
ISSN	1103-3088
	1741-3222
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)	https://doi.org/10.1177/11033088211046168
Official URL	https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/11033088211046168
Online	09 Oct 2021
Publication process dates
Deposited	26 Apr 2023
Publisher's version	11033088211046168.pdf License CC BY 4.0 File Access Level Open
Output status	Published

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