In the middle of a stormy August in Chicago an American colleague invites me out to the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre to see a new play called August: O’sage County by Pulitzer Prize finalist Tracy Letts. It’s billed as a “three-act, three-and-a-quarter-hour, 13-character family saga with ‘traumatic autobiographical resonances and large aspirations'”. Letts is a member of the Steppenwolf Ensemble and he’s told Chicagomag.com “It's just hard. It's the hardest thing I've done. It. Is. The. Hardest.
Thing. I've. Done. It's a hard play."
It’s. Certainly. Courageous advertising!

Essentially, the play paints a picture of a highly dysfunctional family. Afterwards I’m asked if I think the dysfunction is of a sort special to the US – do such families exist in England? And, of course, the whole scene is actually very familiar and I’d say universal, except in relation to the O’sage context. Overbearing mothers, sibling friction, lazy, abusive men. Just like Christmas back home.

Next; similar thing. I visit the the Children’s Court in Chicago – the first of its kind in the world and an eye-opener to a UK visitor. I remember the play and the apres-play conversation as I go inside.

Here, too, the detail is different: helpful signs informing witnesses that guns aren’t allowed are still a jolt to the English sensibility. But not as much as the glaring disproportionality. Every child I see is Black or Latino. We have similar problems in England, but not quite to this disturbing degree.

Otherwise, it’s the sameness that’s striking. Every case I observe (child welfare or juvenile justice) could have taken place in a court in England. Children face the same risks. Some are victims of abuse or neglect; most live in deprived neighborhoods and are exposed to violence or drugs. They commit the same type of crime (mostly petty theft or low-level violence). The sorry aftermath of worse gang violence is on show perhaps, but the kids are much more similar than they are different.

And underneath the disproportionate concentration on disadvantaged ethnic groups and the similarity of their offenses, I begin to notice the same flaws in the fabric of the system. As in England, a small proportion of US cases clearly fall into the child welfare remit (known as child protection in the UK). These are generally clear instances of abuse or neglect. There’s also a small proportion that just as clearly falls into the juvenile justice remit (youth justice in the UK) – serious crimes most often against another individual. But they’re in the minority.

The vast