Word: youths
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Miami, Edward Robinson, 15, was accused of raping a housewife at knife point, even while police surrounded the home. "What you gonna do to me?" he sneered. "Send me to youth hall? I'll be out in a few hours." That taunt landed him in adult court. But his case was an exception. Most juvenile criminals are precluded from effective punishment. Says Andrew Vogt, executive director of Colorado's District Attorneys' Association: "In effect, we have created a privileged class in society...
Analysts tirelessly?and correctly ?say that unemployment, slum housing, inadequate schools and the pathology of the ghetto contribute to the spreading scourge of youth crime. But the reverse is also true: the ripple effects of crime eventually overwhelm a city and destroy its élan. People are frightened away from downtown, reducing business for stores, theaters, restaurants. In their place, thick as weeds, sprout porno houses, massage parlors and gambling havens, where criminals thrive...
Some of the usual explanations seem pretty limp. Yes, America is a materialistic society where everyone is encouraged to accumulate as much as possible. Francis Maloney, commissioner of the department of children and youth in New Haven, notes that "merchants are upset about shoplifting. Well, all the goods are there on the rack to be taken. If you're trying to entice me with the tourist trap, the kid who hasn't money is going to take advantage too. We contribute to the offenses that are committed...
...considers his "rights" to the utmost limits. Standards are lowered and blurred: any behavior, however deviant, finds its instant defenders. The traditional and constraining institutions of family, church and school have lost much of their authority. Says LaMar Empey, a University of Southern California criminologist who specializes in youth: "The 1960s saw the dissipation of the traditional controls of society. There was much more freedom of activity in all spheres, and it was inevitable that there would be more crime. Also, the admission that we had a racist society gave some people an excuse to attack that society without guilt...
...York State spends some $15,000 a year for every kid in an "open" facility; a small, experimental psychiatric program costs $50,000 a year for each youth...