Post #4: Topic Statement

I have decided on a topic quite different from that in my prior posts. In those posts my focus was on the juvenile justice system and on trying children as adults. I chose not to pursue a paper along those lines due to my difficulty in finding a novel angle in what has been an extensively examined topic.

That having been said, the nearness of spring and the arrival of the Washington Nationals got me thinking about baseball. Since this course centers on history involving children, I will naturally need to examine an aspect of youth baseball. Little League is synonymous with youth baseball, so I have chosen it to be the specific type of youth baseball at which I will be looking. The particular historical aspect of Little League Baseball that I want to delve into is its integration. Thus, my topic is the integration of Little League Baseball.

The story of Jackie Robinson and the breaking of the color barrier in major league baseball are widely known, but I personally have never heard anything about the segregation that occurred in Little League Baseball. Little League Baseball has been around since 1939, so it has experienced the same types of social change common to many other American institutions which have been around since that time. The integration of schools and other public places met with violent resistance in many areas. Did Little League have any such experiences? How do the Little League and big league integration experiences compare and contrast? What did the kids themselves think about integration? These are just a few questions I want to answer. As far as sources are concerned, since I just came up with this topic this week, I haven’t had much of a chance to gauge the scope of relevant materials. I expect I’ll find a few books for use as secondary sources and plan to rely on newspapers and other periodicals from the period in question as the main primary sources. Depending on the extent of the materials I am able to find, and the appropriateness for the size of this paper, I could potentially expand the Little League integration issue with a twofold approach: first, integration of the races, and second, integration of the sexes.

My comment on Nick's post can be found here.

Post #3: Examples of Primary Sources

Justice Stewart dissenting in re Gault 

Justice Stewart dissenting in re Gault (cont.) 

U.S. Supreme Court
In re Gault
387 U.S. 1 (1967)
Justice Stewart's dissent
obtained from the Legal Information Institute website of Cornell University
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/histories/USSC_CR_0387_0001_ZD.html

I first came across this primary source in the Childhood in America text (pp.578-584). There, however, the one dissenting opinion of the 8-1 decision was not included, so I have included it here (if the image is too difficult to read, use the link above.) This case was historic in that it established due process rights in the juvenile court system. This introduced much of the more confrontational nature of the adult sytem into the juvenile one and significantly lessened the capacity of the juvenile court judge to decide cases with what, to that point, had basically been full parental discretion. The re Gault decision has been pointed to as the change in the juvenile justice system which paved the way to the more punative and adult-like nature of juvenile courts today.

Letter written by teenager in lockup to the teacher of a writing class that he is taking at the facility where he is detained.(1998) 

Salzman, Mark. True Notebooks. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003 p.275.

"To Whom It May Concern...
Since I joined Mark's writing group I've noticed a lot of changes in my life. Writing has helped me open up to other people and have an open mind to their opinions. Writing has taught me a lot about myself that I never knew I had bottled up inside. Everybody thinks I'm a "hardened criminal" because of the charges against me, but they don't know the real me. For most of my life I didn't even know the real me until writing helped me dig deep down inside and extract my true self. My teacher has helped me, encouraged me, and done everything in his power he can to be more than just a teacher, he's our friend! I'm glad to have been fortunate enough to be in this class. I believe it's been one of my most cherished experiences."
Kevin Jackson
August 5, 1998

This source is valuable in that it offers insight into the experience of a juvenile in lockup. This particular letter shows a positive impact of the writing class at Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles. There are many other student letters in Mark Salzman's book, and they give expression to feelings other than gratitude such as anger, regret, despair, and hope. Salzman taught the writing class as part of the Inside Out Writers program of the nonprofit Alethos Foundation. Sources like this book can be useful in assessing the efficacy of various reformatory programs.

Detention home/jail use by Fairfax County for juvenile confinement in the year 1970. 

Annual Statistical Report
Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court
1970/1980
VREF 345.08 F (Virginia Room of Fairfax Regional Library)

"Conditions at the Northern Virginia Regional Juvenile Detention Home remain crowded. This court shares that facility with Arlington County and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church. The overflow must be housed in the county jail. Table L shows the data for the current year regarding use of jail and detention. Table M shows the yearly use of detention declined from an average length of stay of 14.6 days in 1969 to an average length of stay of 10.7 days in 1970. Use of jail declined from an average length of stay of 8.9 days to an average length of stay of 7.2 days for 1970, as a reaction of the over crowding, as well as reallocation of court resources in that direction. Though the number requiring confinement rises they are held for a shorter time."

Hopefully the tables are legible since they cannot be easily recreated in the blog.

Data such as these are obviously useful for tracking change over time. These two tables show how the number of juveniles passing through the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court has increased over time and accordingly placed an increased strain on the physical facilities. It is interesting how back in 1970, the only demographics included were "White", "Negro", "Male", and "Female." Just glancing over the data I picked up on what appears to be an error in the "Total Held" column of Table M for 1970. I believe the numbers add up to 940 and not 990.

Post #2: Reading for Topic Ideas (cont.)

This week I read sections relating to the juvenile justice system, a topic of interest touched upon in my reading from last week. The sections included “The Establishment of Juvenile Courts” and “Juvenile Court and the Artistry of Approach” (pp.559-569) as well as “Juveniles’ Right to Due Process” and “Punishing Very Young Criminals” (pp.578-586), all of which were from Childhood in America. In The Children’s Culture Reader, I read the section “Popular Culture and the Family” (pp.485-495) which also was concerning juvenile delinquency. These readings were all undergirded by the theme that juvenile delinquents were not truly criminals but that they were the morally misguided products of their environment which could itself be altered to accordingly effect positive moral change in these youth.

“A child who today is simply neglected may be dependent tomorrow, truant the next day and delinquent the day after that.” This notion is quoted from historian Susan Tiffin’s article, “The Establishment of Juvenile Courts” (p.561) in Childhood in America. She traces the roots of the juvenile justice system back to the latter 19th century and states that the nation’s first juvenile court was established in Illinois in 1899. At that time it was thought that the state should act in a sort of parental capacity to delinquents. This new category of court systems, which had been implemented in every state, save for two, by 1925, dealt not only with delinquency, but also with issues of dependency and neglect. The system relied nearly entirely upon the wisdom of the judges and probation officers or social workers, all of whom were to handle matters very much from a parental standpoint. Guidance, not retribution or punishment, was the goal. Judge Ben Lindsey of Colorado emphasized in his article “Juvenile Court and the Artistry of Approach” the importance of “understanding judges” and “intelligent enforcement agencies.” In the latter half of the 20th century, much of the parental or summary nature of juvenile courts was altered by the inclusion of due process rights for juveniles such as right to counsel, right to cross-examination, right against self-incrimination, right to appellate review, etc.

The articles in the “Popular Culture and the Family” section of The Children’s Culture Reader examined possible reasons behind juvenile delinquency. Social reformer Frederic Wertham, in his 1953 article “Such Trivia as Comic Books,” pointed to a corrupting influence of violent comics. He used specific cases of delinquency in which the juvenile spent a significant amount of time immersed in such materials. Dorothy Walter Branch, a writer of parenting books, in her article from 1949, “The Play’s the Thing,” tried to explain the psychology behind children’s interest in violent entertainment. She argued that these forms of violence merely gave expression, but not rise, to feelings of aggression already naturally present in all children. Those who became delinquent did so for lack of outlets to release their aggression.

My reading this week has me leaning toward a research topic related to the juvenile justice system. I’m still interested in the trying of children as adults. It seems an extremely difficult proposition to uniformly assign legal responsibility at the passage of some set period of time. If, on the other hand, individual judgment and mitigating circumstances are allowed to enter the equation, the problem becomes a lack of uniformity and the attending appearance, if not verity, of unequal justice.

My comment on Laura's post can be found here.

Links to Classmates' Blogs

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Post #1: Reading for Topic Ideas

I chose to read the "Discipline" section (pp. 200-232) in Childhood in America, edited by Paula S. Fass and Mary Ann Mason. I also read the "Children at War" section (pp. 476-484) in The Children's Culture Reader, edited by Henry Jenkins. The two sections approached their particular topics differently. The section on discipline utilized historical, sociological, and legal perspectives. The section on children during war took a strongly psychological approach. One common theme that may be drawn from these two sections is one of childhood responsibility. Regardless of the period of history, children were expected to have some level of accountability for their actions, be they concerning matters of discipline and obedience or war and the war aid effort.

"If Dennis the Menace were around, he'd be shackled hand and foot, with Mr. Wilson chortling as the cops hauled his mischievous butt off to juvenile hall." Annette Fuentes authored that quote in her article "Cracking Down on Kids" found in the compilation Childhood in America. Hers was the last in the series of sources tracing the disciplining of American children from the 17th century to present day. At first, corporal punishment was used on a regular basis for the purpose of subduing children and breaking their will. For children under the age of 16, this sort of discipline was more of a corrective measure handled by the family, in the confines of the home. There was a general belief that children not yet 16 years old were to be taught responsibility but not to be held ultimately responsible for their actions until they were older. Starting sometime in the 18th century, corporal punishment began to lose favor among parents, and gentler discipline was promoted by John Locke and others. To the present day, the gentler variety of discipline is preferred within the home, but in a striking dichotomy, legal discipline or punishment has sought to place greater responsibility on increasingly younger children. Fuentes mentioned the prosecution of children as adults (even at the age of seven for certain felonies in New York) and "no tolerance" school policies as evidence of this trend.

Much of the source material in the "Children at War" section exhorts children during World War II to accept various responsibilities and to do what they can to help win the war. Angelo Patri, a progressive educator, told them that they had been enlisted as citizen soldiers and that they too must work to secure their freedom. Clearly there was a belief among adults that children could make a positive, meaningful impact. This sentiment appears to have been reversed today. Fuentes cited a study from 1997 which found that "58 percent of those surveyed think children and teens will make the world a worse place or no different when they grow up." That's disconcerting if one is concerned about the future and holds the belief that children will live up or down to the expectations of their elders.

I generally found all these readings interesting but was most absorbed by Fuentes' "Cracking Down on Kids." I was struck by the negativity of the modern attitude toward children. As far as a potential paper topic is concerned, I would like to do some more reading, but the legal trend of trying children as adults might be one possibility.

My comment on Lori's post can be found here.