Anxiety about unemployment, homelessness, poverty and crime has always been around. Today, governments, experts and the media spend a lot of time talking about people at risk, the measurement and prediction of risk factors, encouraging resiliency and the need for early intervention. What are the politics, origins and meanings behind risk talk? Is the discovery and management of risk factors capable of offering real solutions? This lively, provocative book asks these questions by examining youth employment, homelessness and juvenile crime. It is a must-read for policy makers, human service workers, researchers and anyone interested in the key social issues of our time.