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Fall 2001

The Scapegoating of America’s Youth: Past and Present (Mis)Conceptions

DifferenTakes Series
13 ~ Fall 2001
[PDF Version]
By Ryn Gluckman

In December 1995 John DiIulio, former head of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, published a series of apocalyptic reports predicting a new breed of violent juvenile delinquents, the “teenage superpredators.” Most famous among these reports was the widely read “The Coming of the Super-Predators.”1 Even as adult and youth crime indices began to drop from their 1994 peaks, DiIulio, with a handful of other criminologists and academics, warned of violence rooted in the inner cities—specifica

Ryn Gluckman is the Program Coordinator at the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College, and Program Assistant at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program. She is a writer and activist and is currently co-authoring a book on young people’s oppression.

References

  1. DiIulio, John. “The Coming of the Super-Predators.” The Weekly Standard. 11/27/95. Vol. 1, No. 11, p.23
  2. DiIulio, John. “Crime in America: Three Ways To Prevent It.” Testimony: John J. DiIulio Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University. House Judiciary Committee, Revised Crime Bill. 1/20/95
  3. Death Penalty Information Center. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/juvchar.html#overview
  4. Kramer, Ronald. “Poverty, Inequality, and Youth Violence.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 527. 1/2000 p. 123

    Males, Mike. The Scapegoat Generation. Common Courage Press: Maine. 1996 pp. 19, 20
  5. Bernard, Thomas. The Cycle of Juvenile Justice. Oxford U. Press: New York 1991 pp. 32-33
  6. Schlossman, Steven, Wallach, Stephanie. “The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Juvenile Delinquency in the Progressive Era.” Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, February 1987 pp. 68-9
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Human Security: A Gender Perspective

DifferenTakes Series
14 ~ Fall 2001
[PDF Version]
By Angela Raven-Roberts, Ph. D.

As once again the United States undertakes for military operations overseas, it is more important than ever to examine alternative approaches to national security.

International Relations had previously placed an emphasis on the security of the state. The focus of human security, by contrast, is on individuals in and of their own right, as well as on understanding and engaging with a much wider range of political, social, environmental and economic threats that pose challenges to individual and community well-being.

Angela Raven-Roberts, Ph.D. is the Acting Director of the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University

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Putting Community Back in the Domestic Violence Movement

DifferenTakes Series
15 ~ Fall 2001
[PDF Version]
By Anannya Bhattacharjee

The violence unleashed on September 11 has radically altered the political stage by raising questions about the relevance of routine political work in the U.S. Compared to the enormous tragedy of September 11, this year’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October) seems insignificant. I find myself asking: Is violence against women a relevant concern for all? Has the domestic violence movement made itself relevant to the broader calls for a safe and peaceful world?

Anannya Bhattacharjee is currently Program Officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program and is co-editor of Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization (forthcoming from South End Press, March 2002). She is the author of “Whose Safety?: Women of Color and Law Enforcement Violence,” co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and the Committee on Women, Population and Environment. She is the former Executive Director of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities; founder and former Executive Coordinator of Sakhi for South Asian Women; and co-founder of the SAMAR Collective (a South Asian progressive media resource). She writes and speaks widely on social justice work.

References

  1. Bhattacharjee, Anannya. Whose Safety? Women of Color and the Violence of Law Enforcement. A Justice Visions Working Paper published by the American Friends Service Committee and the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment. May 2001. Justice Visions working papers are available as publications or downloadable from the web. For more information, contact AFSC’s Community Relations Unit cruweb@afsc.org.
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