The Jack-Roller tells the story of Stanley, a pseudonym Clifford Shaw
gave to his informant and co-author, Michael Peter Majer. Stanley was
sixteen years old when Shaw met him in 1923 and had recently been
released from the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac, after serving a
one-year sentence for burglary and jack-rolling (mugging),
Vivid, authentic, this is the autobiography of a delinquent--his
experiences, influences, attitudes, and values. The Jack-Roller helped
to establish the life-history or "own story" as an important instrument
of sociological research. The book remains as relevant today to the
study and treatment of juvenile delinquency and maladjustment as it was
when originally published in 1930.