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Superpredators: The Demonization Of Our Children By The Law
Almost weekly it seems that we're bombarded with gruesome headlines of horrific criminal acts committed by young people - adolescents shoot their peers in the schoolyard; a teenager gives birth at her prom, kills the baby, and rejoins the dance; two boys allegedly kill a girl for her bicycle. Are children today more violent and remorseless than in the past? Is this the advent of a youth crime wave? What's the best option to fight juvenile crime - prevention and rehabilitation or life sentences in adult prisons and the death penalty? The Demonization of Our Children by the Law tackles these important questions head-on. Peter Elikann, criminal defense attorney, legal commentator, and author, persuasively argues that children are not born to become "superpredators" who wreak havoc on society. Superpredators fiercely champions these littlest individuals and, in fact, adopts an optimistic note - that youth crime will continue to drop as long as we invest in our children with proven policies and ethics for living and interacting. We must reevaluate the family unit and bring adults, mentors, and role models into the lives of our children.
264 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2002
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 14, 2012
Blaming youth is nothing new.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
-SOCRATES
They key difference here, however is that far reaching government and media have gone from merely complaining about youth to actively making their subjugation a political agenda. Elikann merely debunks the violence aspect of scapegoating youth for social ills, mostly because that's his field.
This book doesn't go as in depth as it could, but there was a bibliography in the version I read.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
-SOCRATES
They key difference here, however is that far reaching government and media have gone from merely complaining about youth to actively making their subjugation a political agenda. Elikann merely debunks the violence aspect of scapegoating youth for social ills, mostly because that's his field.
This book doesn't go as in depth as it could, but there was a bibliography in the version I read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review