On Behalf of Children

About the Book

When children go bad, who do we blame? In his well-researched book On Behalf of Children, Seymour Gelber paints a picture of juvenile delinquency in Dade County, Florida. Where a community may have failed to meet the children’s needs, the seven remarkable judges featured in this book acted as activists for these troubled children. Their inspiring stories and experiences are page turning, revealing the road that Dade County paved for child advocacy, and that other court systems in the country have modeled their own systems after. So, the question is not when children go bad, who do we blame, but when children go bad, what do we do? The answer is found in the inspiring stories told in On Behalf of Children.

About the Author

Eighty-seven-year-old Seymour Gelber has had an extensive career in government. Currently, sitting as a senior juvenile court judge, he began in 1957 as a legislative aide to State Senator Joe Eaton. Thereafter, he served as an assistant state attorney under the legendary Richard Gerstein. Appointed to the circuit court bench in 1974 by Governor Reuben Askew, he served in the juvenile court for fifteen years, sharing responsibilities as administrative judge with his colleague William Gladstone. Upon reaching the compulsory retirement age, Gelber was elected mayor of Miami Beach for three terms. As a hobby, he has written six books describing events of that era.