juvenile delinquency

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Young Martin Stokes has been locked up in Rikers Island for five interminable months for an unintentional crime. After he is caught in a razor fight between two inmates, he is transferred to a different part of the prison where he gets the chance to attend high school and meets a teacher who wants to help him.

Fifteen-year-old Cassie Streng is determined to expose her stepfather after learning that he is giving a dangerous experimental drug to his teenaged psychiatric patients, but he sends her to a boot camp for troubled teens in Mexico in order to keep her quiet.

Mike Longridge, given a choice between juvenile detention or participation in an outdoor program called Explore, opts for ten months in the Explore classes, but he feels out of place and must decide whether to stick it out or wind up in trouble again.

Two star high school basketball players, one black and one white, experience the justice system differently after committing a crime together and getting caught.

Explores the issues surrounding the treatment and actions of violent children, with primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives, extensive bibliographies, and annotated lists of relevant organizations.

Fourteen-year-old Alex struggles to rise above the life events which seem to conspire against him, from a mother who lies, to a probation officer who won't give him a break, to bullies at his new school.

Barbara sets out to rescue her friend T.J., who has been sent to a youth center, and soon realizes things aren't as clear as they seem to be.

Mike Klingenberg is a troubled fourteen-year-old from a dysfunctional family in Berlin who thinks of himself as boring, so when a Russian juvenile delinquent called Tschick begins to pay attention to him and include Mike in his criminal activities, he is excited--until those activities lead to disaster on the autobahn.

Arrested on a minor offense, a New York City teenager attends high school in the jail facility on Rikers Island while waiting for his case to go to court.