The dangerousness of youth-at-risk: the possibilities of surveillance and intervention in uncertain times

It will be argued that these discourses about youth-at-risk provoke dangerous possibilities for the increased surveillance of, and intervention into, young people's lives by regulatory authorities and the forms of expertise recruited by these agencies.

Abstract

This paper will explore the dangerous possibilities provoked by the popular and promiscuous construction of the category of "youth-at-risk". In an age of large-scale and profound social changes, narratives of uncertainty and risk dominate popular, political and theoretical discourses about youth. Under these social conditions, the discourse of youth-at-risk is mobilized from a variety of intellectual and political positions in various attempts to regulate the behaviors and dispositions of youth. The paper will argue that these discourses provoke dangerous possibilities for the increased surveillance of, and intervention into, young people's lives by regulatory authorities (schools, police, health services, and juvenile justice systems) and the forms of expertise recruited by these agencies.