The Super Predator Scare – Term Paper

The documentary ‘Superpredator’ Scare is a collection of the past criminal activities that juniors were indulging in. Frequently, children are viewed as innocent and without evil motives. As they continue growing, this is bound to change depending on internal factors such as character and mindset and external factors such as the company they keep regarding friends and family. The documentary is more like a response to the title wave of juvenile violence that was quickly becoming unbearable. This ordeal was foretold since the late nineties where youth violence was deemed uncontainable. The youth violence pattern was worrying and bound to go up in the next few years. Records and patterns studied by social scientists and criminologists foresaw this doom about the upcoming wave of kids who were hell-bent to ravage the country.

The term ‘superpredators’ was then born to describe these unlawful and belligerent youth. A predator is an animal that hunts down other animals for food or pleasure. Therefore, a superpredator enhances the beast, even more, making it more dangerous and fearful. The term superpredator is used in this documentary to mean a young juvenile criminal who is so impulsive and remorseless hence capable of committing just about any crime. The fact that they are spontaneous means they can kill, rape and maim without giving it a second thought or minding the consequences. Superpredators, being young and inexperienced, are easily manipulated hence easily used. Since the unsuspecting society does not think they are capable pulling off such criminal activities, not much attention is paid to them, and this becomes another advantage to the gangs using them.

Upon interviewing a murder suspect serving a jail term who committed this crime in his youth, he said that sometimes he did what he did through coercion. Sometimes the threats were so scary and involved having guns pointed at their heads. Political scientist, John Dilulio, had done extensive research on the criminal justice system and prisons and discovered that the teenage homicide rates had doubled. He predicted a doubling or even tripling of the rates of youth violence. What was most troubling to Dilulio is that the new generation of youth violence would be more destructive and highly evolved if the nation did not act accordingly and in time (“NYTLogo_gray#888888”, 2016).

James Fox, a criminologist, also predicted this rise in youth violence and saw the need to sound the alarm. Fox and Dilulio felt the need to inform the world on this issue. They went on ahead to say that what people should be more frightened was not what was happening then but rather what was bound to occur in the not so distant future if no action was taken. Although the majority of the superpredators are not of a specified race, the blacks dominate this field. They comprise of kids who grow up fatherless, jobless and Godless. They have nothing to keep them busy or a father figure to guide them. They grow up to become very complacent youths with a rebellious attitude like they don’t have the slightest care in the world.

Lawmakers suggested tougher laws to minimize these juvenile offenses. One, for instance, said that criminal offenses are criminal offenses regardless of who committed them; this called for tougher laws and increased penalties to crack down on juvenile offenders in almost forty-five states. Juvenile cases raise difficult questions and put the prosecutors in a dilemma. They have to punish the juvenile delinquents without coming off too harsh yet at the same time instill discipline (“NYTLogo_gray#888888”, 2016).

References

NYTLogo_gray#888888. (2016). Static01.nyt.com. Retrieved 6 October 2016, from https://static01.nyt.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000002807771