Those who had a stake in the elaboration and expansion of the therapeutic state were able to use the agencies of socialization [of children] for their purposes for the following reasons:

--children's rights have remained relatively undeveloped in our legal system

--children and youth ceased to be a valued source of labor power in our society

--children and youth have been viewed and treated as incomplete and incompetent human beings.

This ideology and the control strategies it supported assumed that children and youth are incapable of exercising self-control in the face of temptations presented by modern society. In the absence of a capacity for self-control, control by the modern scientific expert versed in medical/clinical diagnosis and treatment of juvenile deviance was promoted within the juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system promised that it could prevent delinquency in our society and, thus, it gained legitimacy for a time as an instrument of the public welfare acting for the common good. Once it established legitimacy in the public mind, it provided a fertile testing ground for the assumptions and strategies of the therapeutic state. For the most part, the public remained satisfied to give control over problem chiildren and youth of all kinds to the agents of juvenile justice in order to get them out of their hair and, hopefully, out of their sight.