The Culture of Fear (43 page)

25
See Kim Pittaway, “Sex Offenders: What You Need to Know,”
Chatelaine
68 (March 1995): 57; Kenneth Wooden,
Child Lures
(Arlington, TX: Summit, 1995).

26
Joel Best,
Threatened
Children (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), ch. 2; Jay Grelen, “Sorting Out Myth, Mystery of ‘81 Slaying,”
Rocky Mountain News,
15 May 1995, p. A22 (contains Walsh quote).

27
Best,
Threatened Children,
and “Dark Figures and Child Victims,” in J. Best, ed.,
Images ofIssues
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989), pp. 21-38 (contains Young quote).

28
Barbara Vobejda, “Abduction Publicity Could Scare Children,”
Washington Post,
25 November 1985, pp. A1, 6. Another example: “Teaching Fear,”
Newsweek,
10 March 1986, pp. 62-63. On concerns in Britain about frightening children see Sally Weale, “Watch Out with Mother,”
TheGuardian
26 July 1993, p. 10.

29
NBC, “Today Show,” 15 June 1995. Regarding “America’s Most Wanted”: Gray Cavender and Lisa Bond-Maupin, “Fear and Loathing on Reality Television,”
Sociological Inquiry
63 (1993): 305-17. Examples of other coverage around Missing Children’s Day: Rob Haeseler, “Many Questions Whether Databases Help or Hurt,”
San Francisco
Chronicle,
25 May 1995, p. A1; “American Agenda” segment, “ABC World News Tonight,” 25 May 1995. For another example of more recent coverage see Tom Gorman, “A Parent’s Worst Fear Come True,”
Los Angeles Times,
26 April 1997, pp. A1, 16, 17.

30
Dale Russakoff, “The Power of Grief,”
Washington Post
National Edition, 22 June 1998, p. 27.

31
Louise Continelli, “A Father Fights Back,”
Buffalo News,
5 July 1998, p. M 16. For skeptical reporting about the Walsh murder see Grelen, “Sorting Out Myth”; Kent Andrade, “Crimes of the Hearth,”
LA Village View,
2 June 1995, pp. 7, 9.

32
“Geraldo,” 13 January 1997 and 4 December 1997.

33
Ernie Allen, “Missing Children,”
USA Today Magazine, July
1994, pp. 46-48.

34
Paula Statman,
On the Safe Side
(New York: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 119.

35
Wooden,
Child Lures;
CBS, “48 Hours,” 7 December 1995. On “The Mark War-berg Show” (18 December 1995) and ABC’s “Primetime Live” (6 April 1997) Wooden staged mock abductions from playgrounds. Wooden’s activities in previous decades: Philip Jenkins,
Using Murder
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 127, 198-99.

36
Angela Mickalide, “Creating Safer Environments for Children,”
Childhood Education
70 (1994): 263-67; Best,
Threatened Children,
p. 125.

37
Marilyn Ivy, “Have You Seen Me? Recovering the Inner Child in Late Twentieth-Century America,” in S. Stephens, ed.,
Children and the Politics of Culture
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

38
Ibid.; Bettijane Levine, “For Sale: A Sense of Security,”
Los Angeles Times,
31 May 1995, pp. E1—2.

39
Levine, “For Sale.”

40
Except as otherwise specified, information on Ideon and the Network from Rob Haeseler, “Credit Card Protection Firm Turns to Missing Kids,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
5 May 1995, p. A1; Sam Stanton, “Critics Find Fault in Missing Kids Service,”
Sacramento Bee,
25 May 1995, p. A1; Haeseler, “Many Questions”; Levine, “For Sale”; and information provided by the company and contained in their advertisements.

41
Barbara Kantrowitz, “Stalking the Children,”
Newsweek,
20 December 1993, pp. 28-29; Haeseler, “Many Questions” (contains Swartz quotes).

42
Rob Haeseler, “Missing Child Service Being Sued,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
11 May 1995, p. A9.

43
Peter Annin, “‘Superpredators’ Arrive,”
Newsweek,
22 January 1996, p. 57; Barbara Kantrowitz and Connie Leslie, “Wild in the Streets,”
Newsweek,
2 August 1993, pp. 40—47; Michele Ingrassia, “Life Means Nothing,”
Newsweek,
19 July 1993, pp. 16-17; Bettijane Levine, “A New Wave of Mayhem,”
Los Angeles Times,
6 September 1995, pp. El, 4 (contains quote).

44
Statistic from Steven Holmes, “It’s Awful, It’s Terrible,”
New York Times,
6 July 1997, p. E3; quote from Kenneth Noble, “Mistaken Killing of Three Teen-Agers Erodes a California City’s Confidence,”
New York Times,
2 December 1994, p. A11.

45
Noble, “Mistaken Killing.” Additional information is from my own observations in Pasadena and reports in Pasadena community publications and other local media.

46
Dale Kunkel, “How the News Media ‘See’ Kids,”
Media StudiesJournal
8 (Fall 1994): 74-84.

47
Lori Dorfman et al., “Youth and Violence on Local Television News in California,”
American Journal ofPublicHealth
87 (1997): 1311-16.

48
Isabel Wilkerson, “2 Boys, a Debt, a Gun, a Victim: The Face of Violence,”
New York Times,
16 May 1994, pp. A1, C10—11. See also Levine, “New Wave of Mayhem”; Dean Wright, “Alarming Rise in Kids Who Kill,”
Los Angeles Times,
16 August 1992, pp. A1, 18; Celia Dugger, “A Boy in Search of Respect Discovers How to Kill,”
New York Times,
15 May 1994, pp. A1, 36.

49
Debbie Howlett, “Chicago Tot’s Young Killers Test System,”
USA Today,
28 November 1995, p. 3A; FBI Uniform Crime reports, 1985-1995, Washington, DC; Robin Templeton, “First, We Kill All the 11-Year-Olds,”
Salon,
27 May 1998; Annette Fuentes, “The Crackdown on Kids,”
Nation,
15 June 1998, pp. 20-22 (contains Justice quote).

50
Wilkerson, “2 Boys, a Debt.”

51
Margaret Tinsley, “You and Your Family,”
Daily Telegraph,
26 February 1993, p. 3.

52
Ibid.

53
Bob Dole, “Clinton’s Boast on Crime Misses Real Story,”
USA Today,
7 November 1995, p. 13A; Ron Harris, “A Nation’s Children in Lockup,”
Los Angeles Times,
22 August 1993, pp. A1, 20-21; Ira Schwartz, Shenyang Guo, and John Kerbs, “The Impact of Demographic Variables on Public Opinion Regarding Juvenile Justice,”
Crime and Delinquency
39 (1993): 5-28; Bruce Shapiro, “The Adolescent Lockup,”
Nation,
7 July 1997, pp. 6-7; Fox Butterfield, “Profits at Juvenile Prisons Earned at Chilling Cost,”
New York Times,
15 July 1998, pp. A1, 14.

54
Steven Donziger, “Fear, Crime, and Punishments in the U.S.,”
Tikkun
12, no. 6 (1997): 24-27, 77; idem, “The Hard Cell,” New
York,
9 June 1997, pp. 26-28; Bruce Shapiro, “Portfolio Prisons,”
Nation,
20 October 1997, pp. 4-5; Eric Bates, “Private Prisons” and “Private Prisons, Cont.,”
Nation,
5 January 1998, pp. 11-18, and 4 May 1998, p. 5.

55
ABC, “World News Tonight,” 22 February 1995.

56
Mike Males and Faye Docuyanan, “Crackdown on Kids,”
Progressive,
February 1996, pp. 24-26; Robin Templeton, “Superscapegoating,”
Extra,
January 1998, pp. 13-14; Maria Puente, “Law Getting Tougher on Children,”
USA Today,
1 April 1998, p. A3; David Moore, “Majority Advocate Death Penalty for Teenage Killers,”
Gallup Poll Monthly,
September 1994, pp. 2-7.

57
David Anderson, “When Should Kids Go to Jail?”
American Prospect
(May 1998): 72-78; Barry Glassner et al., “A Note on the Deterrent Effect of Juvenile vs. Adult Jurisdiction,”
SocialProblems
31 (1983): 219-21; David Savage, “Florida’s Tough Teen Crime Stance May Be Wrong Cure,”
Los Angeles Times,
11 July 1996, pp. A1, 14; Russell Eisenman, “Characteristics of Adolescent Felons in a Prison Treatment Program,”
Adolescence
28 (1993): 695-99; Lawrence Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,”
Journal ofResearchin Crime and Delinquency
30 (1993): 445—73; Jerome Miller, “Juvenile Justice: Facts vs. Anger,”
New York Times,
15 August 1998, p. A23; Carl Keane et al., “Deterrence and Amplification of Juvenile Delinquency by Police Contact,”
British Journal of Criminology
29 (1989): 336-52; Harris, “Nation’s Children in Lockup.”

58
Jan Fisher, “Prison Boot Camps Offer No Quick Fix,”
New York Times,
10 April 1994, p. 11; Joe Davidson, “Boot Camps for Young Criminals Lose Favor,”
Wall Street
Journal,
18 April 1997, p. A20; “The Bust in Boot Camps,”
Newsweek,
21 February 1994, p. 26; Doris MacKenzie and Alex Piquero, “The Impact of Shock Incarceration Programs on Prison Crowding,”
Crime and Delinquency
40 (1994): 222-49; Merry Morash and Lila Rucker, “A Critical Look at the Idea of Boot Camp as a Correctional Reform,”
Crime and Delinquency
36 (1990): 204-22.

59
Later that year another page-one story in the Times, this time about youth violence in a housing project in New Orleans, began, “Once, before the children had guns, she could see them running from her stoop as if her voice were thunder and her accusing finger were lightning ...“ Rick Bragg, “Where a Child on the Stoop Can Strike Fear,”
New York Times,
2 December 1994, pp. A1, 10.

60
Truman quoted in William Hillman,
Mr. President
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1952). Violence against Chinese: David Zucchino, “Today’s Violent Crime Is Old Story with a Twist,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
30 October 1994, p. 1. Other historical items: Ruskin Teeter, “Coming of Age on the City Streets in 19th Century America,”
Adolescence
23 (1988): 909-12. See also Cheng-Tsu Wu,
“Chink!”
(New York: Meridian, 1972); Thomas Bernard,
The Cycle of Juvenile Justice
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), ch. 3; Gerald Moran and Maris Vinovskis, “Troubled Youth,” in R. Ketterlinus and M. Lamb, eds.,
Adolescent Problem Behaviors
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994), pp. 1—16.

61
Howlett, “Chicago Tot’s.”

62
Barry O‘Neill, “The History of a Hoax,”
New York Times Magazine,
6 March 1994, p. 46.

63
O’Neill, “History of a Hoax”; Tamara Henry, “Textbooks Too Few, Too Old, Say Teachers,”
USA Today,
29 February 1996, p. A1; “In His Own Words” (excepts from a speech by Ross Perot),
New York Times,
14 September 1996, p. 8.

64
“Schools Are Relatively Safe, U.S. Study Says,”
New York Times,
19 November 1995, p. 20; Mike Males, “Who’s Really Killing Our Schoolkids?”
Los Angeles Times,
31 May 1998, pp. M1, 3.

65
Peter Applebome, “For the Ultimate Safe School, Official Eyes Turn to Dallas,”
New York Times,
20 September 1995, pp. A1, B8; “Townview Troubles” (editorial),
Dallas Morning News,
14 November 1995, p. A16. See also Terrence Stutz, “Security Expenses Surge in Urban Texas Schools,”
Dallas Morning News,
30 September 1997, p. A1. For an example of another high-security school see CBS, “Sunday Morning,” 3 May 1998.

66
Natalie Angier, “The Debilitating Malady Called Boyhood,”
New York Times,
24 July 1994, p. El (contains Konner quote). Statistics and contemporary approach: Susan Okie, “Hyperactivity Drugs Given to Very Young,”
Washington Post,
2 July 1998, p. Z7; Thomas Armstrong, “ADD: Does It Really Exist?”
Phi Delta Kappan
77 (1996): 424-28; Charles Hurt, “Ritalin Prescription: For Teachers or Kids?”
Denver Post,
23 April 1998, p. A19; Leslie Sowers, “The Mental Health of Children, Part II,”
Houston Chronicle,
28 June 1998, p. 6. On medicalization see Peter Conrad and Joseph Schneider,
Deviance and Medicalization
(St Louis: Mosby, 1980). Research supporting medicalization: Alan J. Zametkin, “Attention-Deficit Disorder: Born to Be Hyperactive?
Journal of the American Medical Asssociation
273 (1995): 1871—75;J. M. Swanson et al., “Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Hyperkinetic Disorder,”
Lancet
351 (7 February 1998):
429-33. Examples of media accounts positive toward medicalized interpretation: Claudia Wallis, “Life in Overdrive,”
Time,
18 July 1994; Larry Letich, “Attention! A.D.D. Not Just for Kids Anymore,”
Utne Reader
(September-October 1994): 46-49; Merrell Noden, “Dan O‘Brien,”
Sports Illustrated,
27 June 1994, pp. 64-65.

67
Kenneth Gergen, “Psycho- versus Bio-Medical Therapy,” Society 35 (November 1997): 24-27. See also PBS, “The Merrow Report: A.D.D.: A Dubious Diagnosis?” November 1995.

68
Lawrence Diller, “The Run on Ritalin,”
Hastings Center Report
26 (March 1996): 12-18.

69
Lois Weithorn, “Mental Hospitalization of Troublesome Youth,”
Stanford Law Review
40 (1988): 773-838; Sandra Boodman, “Advertising for Psychiatric Hospitals,”
Washington
Post, 5 May 1992, p. A17; Lynette Lamb, “Kids in the Cuckoo’s Nest,”
Utne Reader
50 (March—April 1992): 38, 40; Mary Keegan Eamon, “Institutionalizing Children and Adolescents in Private Psychiatric Hospitals,”
Social Work 39
(1994): 588-94.

70
Joe Sharkey,
Bedlam
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p. 114.

71
Lamb, “Kids in the Cuckoo’s Nest”; Peter Breggin and Ginger Breggin,
TheWar Against Children
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994).

72
Weithorn, “Mental Hospitalization,” p. 786.

73
Sue Greer and Paul Greenbaum, “Fear-Based Advertising and the Increase in Psychiatric Hospitalization of Adolescents,”
Hospital and Community Psychiatry
43 (1992): 1038-39.