‘Children of the city’: juvenile justice, property, and place in England and Scotland, 1945–60

This article uses cases studies of Dundee and Manchester to explain juvenile property-offending in terms of young people’s use of objects and spaces in the period 1945-60. A composite picture is assembled of objects stolen, which reflects growth of the specifically ‘teenage’ consumer market as well as continued significance of young people’s contribution to family economies. Concerns about youth, property, and space were reported in newspapers in terms of vandalism and hooliganism. ‘Play’ and ‘nuisance’ were overlapping and contested categories; re-education of young people in the correct use of place, space, and property was a key aim of the postwar juvenile justice system.