Product Description

With increasing urgency, the plight of the American family grips the national conscience. The family courts are often our society's last safety net to prevent disaster. In this penetrating expose of the inner workings of the U.S. family court system, two award-winning journalists provide an intimate look at the lives of the children whose fate it decides. 384 pp. Author publicity. 35,000 print.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1506492 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-14
• Released on: 1997-01-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 367 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning California reporters Hubner and Wolfson were given unusual access to the confidential proceedings of family court in their hometown of San Jose, Calif. The raw, unmediated portrait of the machinery of juvenile justice, which includes the voices of the families and children as well as of service providers, reveals how intricate and interconnected the problems are. In the courtroom of a juvenile judge, we view the day-to-day routine of welfare, delinquency and child-placement hearings. Writing with admirable conviction and convincing urgency, the authors make the point that the press usually ignores the system until a crisis erupts. Here their aim is to follow children and their families through shelters, courts and foster homes to see how the system really works. The thrust of this graphic report is a push for more government programs for juveniles and a plea for personal commitment through volunteering "to make somebody else's children all our children."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Hubner, a former probation officer, and Wolfson, news columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, tackle here the complexity of the American juvenile justice system. Granted unusual access to the records of the Santa Clara County (California) Probation Department of Family and Children, they were also allowed to interview the social workers, children, and families involved in confidential court proceedings The result is a gripping narrative of juvenile case stories, "the ordinary drama that...reflects the day-to-day working of the system." It's a story of the often well-intentioned counselors, legal constraints, substance abuse, deprivation, and child and family protection gone awry. More descriptive than prescriptive, the book's overarching theme is the lack of responsible community recognition of the necessity for commitment to the healthy development of "our" kids in our society. Especially appropriate and thoughtful reading for our times; recommended for professionals, academics, politicians, and the general public.
Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An unusually levelheaded and perceptive view of the so- called child welfare system. Hubner, a reporter with the San Jose Mercury News, and Wolfson, a freelance journalist (and former probation officer), live in California's Santa Clara County, site of Silicon Valley and the boomtown of San Jose, now the 11th-largest city in the country. Despite its flourishing economy, San Jose is burdened with all the usual societal problems, including juvenile delinquency and child abuse. With the cooperation of the presiding judge of the county juvenile court, the authors were given access to usually confidential court, probation, and child welfare agency records, and they have produced a fascinating insider's view of the mesh of policy, precedent, legislation, and social gestalt that shapes how children in trouble are treated. They interviewed not only children at risk, but their families, friends, teachers, foster parents, and counselors. Neither awash in bathos nor steeped in cynicism, their report focuses on a number of individuals, including Jenny, a teenage mother fighting to keep her baby; Nicky, a baby born prematurely with cocaine and alcohol in his frail system; and Corey, a 15-year-old who stabbed a counselor to death. These stories gain dimension by being set within the larger perspective of America's roller-coaster attitudes toward out-of-control children, a review of often confusing social welfare policy (preserve the family and keep the children safe--sometimes mutually exclusive goals), and an understanding, if not always sympathetic, look at the difficult roles of social workers, attorneys, and prison staff. Despite increasing political pressure to punish juvenile offenders with long prison terms, the authors produce impressive statistics to show that incarceration doesn't work and that intensive, long- term therapy in small, controlled settings does. Balanced, informative, and often very sad, not only in the tragic stories but in the picture of a system that seems close to being overwhelmed. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A real-life look at the kids in the "system"
Hubner and Wolfson do an excellent job of presenting the reader with the children's point of view of the juvenile court system. Children who are removed from their homes because of an abusive environment are often subjected to even worse treatment by the state-run system into which they are placed. Some of the problems that are brought to the reader's attention include: 1) Children are removed from the home based on hearsay evidence, 2) Parents must sometimes admit guilt (even if innocent) or they are accused of being in denial - this Catch-22 situation can be used to keep children separated from their parents regardless of the "facts", 3) Foster parents don't always receive adequate training, and are sometimes perpetrators of abuse. Some foster parents are only in it for the money. Yes, the system does benefit many children. But there is also a large number of children for whom the system is more abusive than the environment from which they were removed. Judge Edwards deserves a lot of credit, because he understands these issues and because he cares about the kids. Read this book at least twice.

Compulsively Readable
This is a textbook of the juvenile dependency system that reads like a page-turner novel. I was unable to put it down for 2 days. The authors' treatment of their material is even-handed and true-to-life. I have worked for the past 4 years as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate and Guardian Ad Litem for these children in my local juvenile court and the cases featured in the book closely mirror the actual cases I've seen over and over again in the courts. The book raises problems in the system to which there are no easy answers, and the authors don't attempt to offer any simplistic solutions: What does the system do with severely emotionally disturbed kids who blow through one placement after another? How do you know when to give up on parents and terminate parental rights? Do you wait until the child's crucial childhood years are mostly over, waiting for the parents to get their act together? How do we place children in good homes when there is such a shortage of foster and adoptive families? I urge anyone interested to get involved with the system as a volunteer. There are over 700 advocate programs around the country and the minimum time commitment is only 12 hours a month.

This is a superb book!
I have been in the field for over 20 years and this is the most accurate account of the Juvenile Justice system. The stories are real and moving. I could not put this book down. I did not agree with everything in the book, however, if you want to know the real story then this is a must read.