Defining Deviance

Download or read book Defining Deviance written by Michael A. Rembis and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the case files of the State Training school of Geneva, Illinois, the author presents a history of delinquent girls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on contemporary perceptions of gender, sexuality, class, disability and eugenics, the work examines the involuntary commitment of girls and young women deemed by reformers to be "defective" and shows both the dominant social trends of the day as well as the ways in which the victims of these policies sought to mitigate their conditions.