Child Advocacy

NO MATTER HOW LOUD I SHOUT : A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court

This is one powerful book: it will grab you with vivid stories about individual kids, draw you in with honesty and compassion, and amaze you with alarming details about how the juvenile justice system works (or rather, doesn't work) in America. Anyone interested in the problem of crime should read Edward Humes's gripping account of how future criminals are shaped in youth, and how the system misses its chance to help them before they're lost for good. As Richard Bernstein writes in the New York Times, "There are many admirable things about Mr. Humes's book, which, despite its grim subject matter, has a narrative power that keeps you reading right to the end. One of them is that Mr. Humes is a shrewd and perceptive observer of his young subjects ... [and he] allows himself to feel sympathy for the young people whose lives and crimes he describes.... At the same time, Mr. Humes never exonerates bad children for their badness." No Matter How Loud I Shout was a finalist for the 1997 Edgar Award in Fact Crime.

Children in the Legal System: Cases and Materials (Children in the Legal System)

CHILDREN IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM focuses on what has been accomplished through legislation and judicial action since the Juvenile Justice Standards were published. General coverage of the juvenile justice system reflects the significant changes and new trends in this field.

Failure to Protect: America's Sexual Predator Laws And the Rise of the Preventive State

Most crimes of sexual violence are committed by people known to the victim-acquaintances and family members. Yet politicians and the media overemphasize predatory strangers when legislating against and reporting on sexual violence. In this book, Eric S. Janus goes far beyond sensational headlines to expose the reality of the laws designed to prevent sexual crimes. He shows that "sexual predator" laws, which have intense public and political support, are counterproductive. Janus contends that aggressive measures such as civil commitment and Megan's law, which are designed to restrain sex offenders before they can commit another crime, are bad policy and do little to actually reduce sexual violence. Further, these new laws make use of approaches such as preventive detention and actuarial profiling that violate important principles of liberty.

Janus argues that to prevent sexual violence, policymakers must address the deep-seated societal problems that allow it to flourish. In addition to criminal sanctions, he endorses the specific efforts of some advocates, organizations, and social scientists to stop sexual violence by, for example, taking steps to change the attitudes and behaviors of school-age children and adolescents, improving public education, and promoting community treatment and supervision of previous offenders.

Janus also warns that the principles underlying the predator laws may be the early harbingers of a "preventive state" in which the government casts wide nets of surveillance and intervenes to curtail liberty before crimes of any type occur. More than a critique of the status quo, this book discusses serious alternatives and how best to overcome the political obstacles to achieving rational policy.

A Kind and Just Parent

William Ayers brings a reporter's eye and an activist's heart to this well-written and profoundly disturbing book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court. Ayers, who teaches offenders in Chicago's juvenile court system, is a brilliant storyteller, the damning fly on the wall. His book portrays the lives of his students--both within the juvenile temporary detention center and on the "outside." Ayers puts their stories into historical context; argues passionately about the roles of media, poverty, and neglect; refutes the idea of teenager as "superpredator"; and challenges parents--all of us--to ask the question, "Is this good enough for my child?" when determining the standard to use when we think of justice for kids.

Through brilliant storytelling, Ayers captures the lives and personalities of young people caught in the juvenile justice system and urges us to change the way we think about kids and crime.

"Ayers's book does for incarcerated kids . . . what Studs Terkel has done for the city's working folks, [and] what Alex Kotlowitz has done for the residents of its housing projects."


—Anthony Platt, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Based on his observations as a teacher in Chicago's Juvenile Court system, the nation's largest institution of juvenile justice. . . . The book offers a view of delinquent youths you won't see much of on the evening news."


—Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune
"Performs an extraordinary service . . . Ayers's unique contribution to the debate comes through the intimate dialogue of classroom encounters."


—Leslie Baldacci, Chicago Sun-Times
"Bill Ayers is a gifted writer and an acute observer of the inferno which we call the Juvenile Court. . . . A moving and intensely sympathetic account of the lives of both the adults and children caught in the sometimes hopeless maelstrom of our juvenile justice system. At every level, it is a book full of grace."


—Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent
"William Ayers is as sensitive and gifted a chronicler as he is a teacher."


—Studs Terkel

Introduction to Advocacy: Research, Writing and Argument (7th Edition) (University Casebook Series)

This overview of the use of litigation in dispute resolution is particularly well-suited for use in an introductory lawyering course. It instructs students on efficient preparation, proper form, and effective presentation of arguments. Content covers interpreting facts and developing core theory, legal research, writing a legal research memorandum, writing a brief, and oral argument.

Somebody Else's Children: The Courts, The Kids, and The Struggle to Save America's Troubled Families

With the narrative force of an epic novel and the urgency of first-rate investigative journalism, this important book delves into the daily workings and life-or-death decisions of a typical American family court system. It provides an intimate look at the lives of the parents and children whose fate it decides. A must for social workers and social work students, attorneys, judges, foster parents, law students, child advocates, teachers, journalists and anyone who cares about our nation's children.

Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption

Weaving together the sociological, the historical, and the personal, Barbara Katz Rothman looks at the contemporary American family through the lens of race, race through the lens of adoption, and all—race, family, and adoption—within the context of the changing meanings of motherhood.

"What a fine and complex book this is! Barbara Katz Rothman takes us, with lucidity and (often brave) good humor, through the tangle of pains and satisfactions that come with her family's challenge to the racial status quo."
—Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart and Before and After

"Is it right for white parents to adopt African-American children? How does a white parent expose her black daughter to two cultures? Protect the child from insensitive remarks? Sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman . . . doesn't just describe what it's like to be the white mother of a black girl. Rothman skillfully debates adoption ethics, the commodification of children, and the politics of inequality in America."
—Anne E. Stein, Chicago Tribune

"In Weaving a Family, the sociologist and white mother of an African American girl provides an accessible, sensitive portrayal of the inherent sociological complexities of mixed-race adoption and parenting."
—Melissa Chianta, Mothering

Barbara Katz Rothman is a professor of sociology at the City University of New York. Her previous books include The Book of Life (Beacon / 0451-0 / $16.00 pb), Recreating Motherhood, The Tentative Pregnancy, and In Labor. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and the youngest of their three children.

Media Law for Producers, Fourth Edition

Media Law for Producers is a comprehensive handbook that explains, in lay terms, the myriad legal issues that the producer will face on a regular basis - contracts, permits, defamation, patents, releases and insurance, libel, royalties and residuals, as well as protecting the finished production. This revised and expanded edition includes such Internet-related topics as Internet music law, online registration, and online privacy. Other new topics covered include:

· Implied and express contracts in the project/idea submission process
· Assignment/transfer of copyright
· Music clip licensing
· Use of other people's trademarks in media production
· Parody as a defense to copyright infringement



Clear explanations examine the how and why of different types of production contracts, and checklists provide a quick means for producers to determine when their productions might be at greatest risk to legal challenges. Media Law for Producers also examines the substantial changes in copyright term resulting from recent copyright legislation.

Legal problems can be very costly to media producers. Lawyers and court fees, coupled with the loss of work time, can lead to bankruptcy. Media Law for Producers cuts through the legalese and illustrates legal issues to help producers recognize the legal questions that can arise during production.

*A useful, practical guide for the active producer

*Completely revised and updated to include a new chapter on Interactive Media

*Contains new sample contracts and forms

Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind

The No Child Left Behind Act is confusing to parents, educators, administrators, advocates, and most attorneys. Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind provides a clear roadmap to the law.
Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind includes the full text of the No Child Left Behind Act with analysis, interpretation & commentary; advocacy strategies, tips, sample letters; and the No Child Left Behind CD-ROM of Publications & Resources.
Learn what the law says about:
Scientifically Based Reading Instruction
Proficiency Testing in Reading, Math, Science
Free Tutoring, Summer School, After-School Programs
Transfers from Failing Schools and School Choice
New Qualifications for Teachers and Paraprofessionals
Bonus Pay, Stipends, Scholarships for Teachers & Principals
Teacher Liability Protection
Bonus! The No Child Left Behind CD-ROM includes the full text of the NCLB statute, regulations, and dozens of references and resources.

Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty

The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost.

Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people.

As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond.