The author illuminates the shortcomings of the juvenile justice system and proposes a strategy for reframing the current social and legal conceptions of adolescence. He argues for reforms that will make adolescents responsible citizens by accurately reflecting the realities of adolescent life.

Although adolescents have sex, suffer the effects of domestic violence and fall victim to sexual harassment, existing laws often prevent them from gaining access to the social services available to adults. Further, laws that deny adolescents access to social services exist side-by-side with laws that readily allow adolescent offenders to be moved from the juvenile system into adult court. In effect, the law treats adolescents either as children or as adults, failing to acknowledge that they are neither. In this book, law professor and attorney Roger J.R. Levesque illuminates the shortcomings of the juvenile justice system and proposes a strategy for reframing the current social and legal conceptions of adolescence. Levesque weaves an intricate tapestry of social, psychological and legal analysis as he argues for reforms that will make adolescents responsible citizens by accurately reflecting the realities of adolescent life. This examination of adolescence is useful reading for anyone who works with teenagers, from mental health professionals and public policy specialists to attorneys.

The Invention and Reinvention of Adolescence
Adolescence and the Law
Regulating the Transition to Adolescent Sexuality
Regulating Sexually Active Adolescents
Sex and Schools
Sex and the Media
Sexual Victimization by Adults
Sexual Victimization by Adolescents
Sexual Offending
Childbearing and Parenthood
Reforming Adolescents' Rights.