The Jack-Roller (1930) by Clifford Shaw is a landmark sociological case study of “Stanley” who was born into a poor immigrant family in Chicago.

After his mother died when Stanley was 4, his father remarried & the stepmother mistreated Stanely, causing him severe distress to the extent he was often running away from home.

Because he was regularly living on the streets from the age of 6, Stanley was often in trouble with the law for petty theft, burglary & begging. By his mid-teens, Stanley was arrested & sent to the Illinois State Reformatory where treatment was harsh.

Clifford Shaw met Stanley was the boy was a 16 & just released from the reformatory. Instead of view Stanley through a pathological lens, Shaw record Stanley’s “life history”.

Shaw’s core argument is that “juvenile delinquency” is a logical response to a child’s circumstances, including poverty & maltreatment.