| The Milltown Boys Revisited Contributor(s): Howard, Williamson (Author), Williamson, Howard (Author) |
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ISBN: 1859738249 ISBN-13: 9781859738245 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC OUR PRICE: $46.48 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2004 Annotation: How do some young people "escape" from a life of crime while others remain in it? This landmark book is the first longitudinal study of deviancy that gets to the heart of this question. During the mid-1970s, Howard Williamson studied a group of young offenders. Twenty-five years later, Williamson decided to track them down in order to find out how their teenage years had shaped their futures. The result is an extraordinary account of how many of these young people "beat all the odds" while others remained embedded in criminality. A celebration of success as much as a confirmation of predetermination, this book is a salutary read on how real lives unfold and whether public policy makes a difference. It will serve as a corrective to many contemporary social theories concerning risk and transition that have to date gone unchallenged. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Criminology - Social Science | Poverty & Homelessness - Social Science | Sociology - General |
| Dewey: 305.569 |
| LCCN: 2004020619 |
| Physical Information: 0.53" H x 6.48" W x 9.24" (0.86 lbs) 288 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Howard Williamson's 'Five Years' was a ground-breaking study of youth, poverty and crime in the 1970s. At its close, the boys he interviewed were left with few prospects and bleak futures. Twenty-five years later, Williamson returns to find out the sort of men these boys have become and narrates their stories in this extraordinary book.Of the original group of sixty-seven boys, seven are dead -- not one of natural causes. Williamson tracked down half of those remaining. Here they tell of their personal, family and social relationships, legal and illegal work, their experiences of the criminal justice system, and money. Contrary to what one might expect, their lives are startlingly diverse.The Milltown Boys Revisited is a riveting account of life on the edge during the Thatcher and Blair governments. It tells stories of dignity, human betterment and escape, of fatalism on the margins of criminal and drug cultures, and also of getting by in difficult circumstances. It is as much a celebration of individual resilience as an account of risk and vulnerability in the lives of the dispossessed. |