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“This remarkable book demonstrates the incredible spirit of resilience that young people generate as they encounter poverty, racism, violence, and institutional failure and neglect. Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto insightfully demonstrate the processes and programs that work in changing the punitive treatment that marginalized youths receive. This riveting ethnography provides readers with a rare look at the experiences of young women and men within the juvenile justice system.”—Victor Rios, author of Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys
“Jacked Up and Unjust sensitively captures the complex of forces that bear down on a youth population we know very little about, helping us to understand the violence enacted upon them and by them, the turbulence and entanglements of Hawai‘i’s colonial past, racial and gender injustice, the penalty of poverty, and the fallout from youth incarceration. A thoughtful ethnography.”—Amy L. Best, author of Fast Cars, Cool Rides: The Accelerating World of Youth and Their Cars
“This ethnography is a critical analysis of the experiences of Pacific Islander adolescents whose lives are plagued by interpersonal, structural, and postcolonial violence. A one of a kind in its deployment of intertwining analytic approaches of colonial criminology, this book uncovers new ways to understand the meaning-making work of the youth participants’ experiences.”—Laurie Schaffner, author of Girls in Trouble with the Law
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Literature Review and Background
2. The Caring Adult Role and Youth Research
3. “Us Girls Get the Second Half ”: Girls’ Early Socialization and Outspoken Femininity v 4. Fighting for Her Honor: High School Girls’ Struggles for Respect
5. Boys’ Fights and the Jacked-Up System
6. Sea of Good Intentions: Juvenile Protection in the Shadow of Punishment
7. Youth Prepare for Adulthood
8. Theoretical Conclusions
9. Compassionate and Constructive Policy and Practice
Appendix 1. Data Sources and Participant Demographics
Appendix 2. Demographics of Quoted Teens
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Katherine Irwin is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. She is the coauthor with Meda Chesney-Lind of Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence, and Hype.
Karen Umemoto is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. She is the author of The Truce: Lessons from an L.A. Gang War.
Summary
In the context of two hundred years of American colonial control in the Pacific, the authors shed light on the experiences of today's inner city and rural girls and boys in Hawaii who face racism, sexism, poverty, and political neglect.
Additional text
"Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto paint a vivid portrait of the penetration of this racist and gendered penal state into the life fabric of Pacific Islander youth. . . . this is an important book that brings a much-needed contribution to scholarship on Hawai‘i as a critical site for the study of colonialism and violence while foregrounding gender oppression."
