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.
Copyright 2000 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.