Book excerpt: The thirty-five chapters in this book are edited versions of papers presented at the Advanced Research Workshop, State Intervention on Behalf of Children and Youth, which took place in Maratea, Italy, February 20-24, 1989. The Workshop was attended by leading child welfare researchers from most of the Western countries. Represented were scholars and practitioners from disciplines as diverse as law, social work, neurology, economics, political science, education, psychology, and psychiatry. This variety of disciplines considerably enriched the discussions at the Workshop and is reflected in a set of interesting and, we believe, potentially useful research papers. This book is divided into four sections, each dealing with dominant themes of state intervention. The first section deals with research on organizing for state intervention and related ways of providing accountability. The second section deals with research on young persons in conflict with the law, the third with research on child abuse and the final section with research on children in care. Many of the matters addressed in these papers relate to more than one of the topical theme headings and, therefore, might well have been located in different sections of the volume. Each section is introduced by an introductory statement that provides an overview of the papers and issues addressed, and suggests an agenda of research work to be undertaken. These introductions are based largely on workshop discussions and do not necessarily represent the views of their identified authors.