What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Mass., where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is tough-as-nails judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about coming down hard on today’s wild youth. But Dillon’s mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for minor infractions, isn’t buying Scali’s line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the draconian sentencing. From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New England’s private prisons.


17 歲的狄倫．葉慈本來只想開個玩笑，沒想到卻因此被關到波士頓港的少年感化院。他幫副校長設立了一個惡作劇的推特帳號，卻沒想到面臨刑事控告，這一切就像噩夢成真。在麻薩諸塞州的布拉克本，絕不寬待未成年人違法。這種嚴懲不貸的風氣由喬．史加利法官主導，鐵石心腸的他說過，要好好教訓時下不受管教的年輕人。但是狄倫的媽媽不買法官的帳，她知道很多多布拉克本的少年因為犯了一點小錯而被送進感化院，吃盡苦頭。她雇用了偵探史賓塞，想要找出嚴峻判決背後所隱藏的真相。史賓賽與他最信任的夥伴霍克，從波士頓港一路到佛羅里達戒備森嚴的社區，透過波士頓黑社會組織追尋蛛絲馬跡，竟發現了與黑社會有關的神秘企業經營著新英格蘭的私人監獄。