Normal Bad Boys

Rains and Teram trace the history, impact, and subversion of public policies affecting the disposition of delinquent, neglected, and emotionally disturbed anglophone youth in Montreal. They examine these policies through study of the more than eighty-year history of The Boys' Farm, now known as Shawbridge Youth Centres, and the strategies it used to control admissions in the face of changing relations with other organizations in Montreal's delinquency, child welfare, and mental health networks. The authors describe the surprisingly direct efforts to increase the supply of reformable "normal bad boys" at the turn of the century; the beginnings, around mid-century, of the "differential treatment" ideology that eventually legitimized institutional control over admissions; and the more recent child-welfare environment that emphasised professional self-regulation and organizational autonomy. The final section of the book is a contemporary case study of Montreal's anglophone youth protection network in the wake of the implementation in 1979 of the Quebec Youth Protection Act.