Rains and Teram trace the history, impact, and subversion of public policies affecting the disposition of delinquent, neglected, and emotionally disturbed anglophone youth in Montreal. They examine these policies through study of the more than eighty-year history of The Boys' Farm, now known as Shawbridge Youth Centres, and the strategies it used to control admissions in the face of changing relations with other organizations in Montreal's delinquency, child welfare, and mental health networks. The authors describe the surprisingly direct efforts to increase the supply of reformable "normal bad boys" at the turn of the century; the beginnings, around mid-century, of the "differential treatment" ideology that eventually legitimized institutional control over admissions; and the more recent child-welfare environment that emphasised professional self-regulation and organizational autonomy. The final section of the book is a contemporary case study of Montreal's anglophone youth protection network in the wake of the implementation in 1979 of the Quebec Youth Protection Act.

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"Intriguing, thought-provoking, and novel ... Normal Bad Boys has provided an appropriate vehicle for exploring the issues which the authors raise, and those issues have a relevance wider than any particular academic discipline or professional group." Susan Houston, Department of History, York University. "We have practically nothing of this nature in Canada ... The authors present a critical review of the system, but they do not engage in the type of diatribe sometimes used by radical scholars ... They communicate some sophisticated concepts in a very clear manner." James C. Hackler, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.

"Intriguing, thought-provoking, and novel ... Normal Bad Boys has provided an appropriate vehicle for exploring the issues which the authors raise, and those issues have a relevance wider than any particular academic discipline or professional group." Susan Houston, Department of History, York University.
"We have practically nothing of this nature in Canada ... The authors present a critical review of the system, but they do not engage in the type of diatribe sometimes used by radical scholars ... They communicate some sophisticated concepts in a very clear manner." James C. Hackler, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.