The status offender controversy: charges and study evidence

Critics of public policy on status offenders urge that PINS statutes be abolished as racially discriminatory in its target population, as bureaucratically coercive in its labeling of normal children, as undemocratic in lacking the "will and consent" of those whom it presumably serves, and unnecessary in that the social welfare marketplace provides a better service alternative. This report of a study on PINS intake cases in Manhattan finds that the data do not support the charges.