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The
Criminalization of Youth
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Scapegoats or ... beneficiaries
or ... benefactors ...
What should be the role of youth in society?
The 1960s saw the blooming of a new and democratic concept of children,
youth and the family. Childrens' natural spontaneity and joyful
exhuberance, their pursuit of discovery and experiment, all were seen
as vitally important social activities. Children are not simply
our beneficiaries; they are our benefactors as well.
Ever since this transformative period, forces of reaction have been
working to sow seeds of anxiety about the freedoms widely considered
necessary to a healthy functioning
society.
In the 1980s they began promoting notions such as the juvenile sex
offender, and the teenaged "super-predator." Notions of sex as
inherently violent and dangerous (although it is usually
the opposite) played heavily in the campaigns
targeting youth.
Small children have been charged for "sex crimes," for what amounts to
playing "doctor" with their peers. Many states have built
institutions to warehouse teen "sex
offenders." Programs at these institutions typically indoctrinate
the youths to hate and fear their own sexuality, breaking their
personalities down to a point approaching total self-abnegation.
The articles linked below chronicle this social travesty and tell the
stories of the most powerless people in our society -- victims of the
culture war over what is the true meaning of freedom.
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