Criminal Children

Abstract

The child of the law, like the man of the law, is a particular kind of legal young person who bears no necessary relationship to a “real” young person. Children are, nevertheless, very much present in the law. This chapter examines the ways in which the language of the law, expressed in statutes relating to child welfare and juvenile justice, has articulated particular notions of the criminal child and deviant childhood. The object, using the words of King and Piper, is to find out how the law has “thought about” children.