The researcher will analyze historical data collected from official documents and insiders from the California juvenile justice system. The theoretical framework guiding this study will be taken from sociologist Philip Selznick, who analyzed how organizations go off course and the forms of leadership that are key to accomplishing positive agency missions.
What caused the California Youth Authority – regarded as the most enlightened juvenile corrections system in the country as recently as the mid-1970s – to become the focus of national publicity on the widespread abuse of its young inmates?
