Book Description
There is perhaps no bigger or more important issue in America at present than youth violence. Jonesboro; Paducah; Pearl, Mississippi; Stamps, Arkansas; Conyers, Georgia; and, of course, Littleton, Colorado. We know them all too well, and for all the wrong reasons: kids, some as young as eleven years old, taking up arms and, with deadly, frightening accuracy, murdering anyone in their paths. What is going on? According to the authors of
Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, there is blame to be laid right at the feet of the makers of violent video games (called "murder trainers" by one expert), the TV networks, and the Hollywood movie studios--the people responsible for the fact that children witness literally thousands of violent images a day.
Authors Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano offer incontrovertible evidence, much of it based on recent major scientific studies and empirical research, that movies, TV, and video games are not just conditioning children to be violent--and unaware of the consequences of that violence--but are teaching the very mechanics of killing. Their book is a much-needed call to action for every parent, teacher, and citizen to help our children and stop the wave of killing and violence gripping America's youth. And, most important, it is a blueprint for us all on how that can be achieved.
In Paducah, Kentucky, Michael Carneal, a fourteen-year-old boy who stole a gun from a neighbor's house, brought it to school and fired eight shots at a student prayer group as they were breaking up. Prior to this event, he had never shot a real gun before. Of the eight shots he fired, he had eight hits on eight different kids. Five were head shots, the other three upper torso. The result was three dead, one paralyzed for life. The FBI says that the average, experienced, qualified law enforcement officer, in the average shootout, at an average range of seven yards, hits with less than one bullet in five. How does a child acquire such killing ability? What would lead him to go out and commit such a horrific act?
Customer Reviews:
Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill.......2007-05-17
This book hits upon a topic that has become severe in this country; youth violence. It discusses many avenues that contribute to our youth using violence against each other. It brings to light numerous strategies that parents, teachers, and other adult agencies can use to decrease, if not completely vanish, the violence seen in our youth. Fantastically written, this book is a must read for anyone who has kids, deals with kids, or is just a member of our society.
Important as Today's Headlines.......2007-03-19
Lt Col Grossman spent a lifetime studying what made soldiers more efficient killers in combat and able to survive. His work extended in to the world of police officers. With a worldwide reputation Grossman is the goto guy.
And then Grossman turned his focus on the army of deadly young killers. Killers who achieve far better performance than police officers in combat. Somewhere in their "training" was a mechanism that turned off the moral control system and honed their responses. As one young killer explained why he first killed his enemies and then his friends, he was on a roll.
Bound to be opposed by Hollywood, the electronic games folks and others, Grossman has the credentials that demand attention from balanced readers.
Grossman documents the effectiveness of "games" which give potential killers the motor skills, training and discipline to be cold blooded mass killers, without any training whatsoever on real firearms. Games, TV and the movies have sanitized shooting and death. The first bullet ever fired by the youngster is a head shot and just like he has done in thousands of games he quickly turns to make the next shot , the next and the next , just as he has been so well trained to do.
In contrast the young person familiar with firearms is far more likely to stop after one shot, devastated by what they have done.
One of the truly worrisome details highlighted by the book is that the only reason murders and murder rates have declined is the higher quality of emergency medicine available in most areas of the country. Without these improvements in emergency medicine the murder rate would have increased significantly.
Today April 16, 2006 his message is more relevant than ever before. Give knowledge a chance. The pattern of the Virginia school shootings follows the warning pattern described by Grossman. If we fail to heed the message we condemn hundreds to their deaths at the hands of these killers we have raised in our communities.
Highly recommended.
This book should be widely read.......2005-12-06
This book approaches the phenomenon of media violence in three parts. First, it points to the rising crime rate in America, during a period of declining racial violence, soaring incarceration rate, terrific advances in police technology, advanced medical technology, faster first-response medical help, and an increasingly educated populace. Yet violent crime has skyrocketed (Aggravated assault, to take one example, was 80/100,000 in 1960, and is about 400/100,000 today), and the muder rate has remained level. To see how far medical advances have come and to illustrate how the murder rate should be declining, the authors point out that that a wound that 9 times out of 10 killed in WWII was survived 9 times out of 10 in Vietnam.
The relationship between these trends and violent media is not one of pure speculation, but of methodical study. There have been thousands of studies on the relation, virtually all of which have concluded a link between violent media and violent behavior. One of the most interesting studies related took place in an area where there were four villages, all without television. Researches went in and observed for two weeks children on the playgrounds in these villages, and recorded all instances of physical aggression. Then televisions were brought into two of the villages. New researchers, unaware of the goal of their research, were brought in to again observe the children. Levels of aggression remained constant in the villages without television, and increased 160% in the villages with television.
The second part of this book talks about how watching violent media actually affects us. It does so in 3 ways:
1. It incites fear in us. Violent crimes are much, much more common in TV-world than in the real world. We subconsciously internalize this danger, and become more fearful of others than we would be if we weren't so hyperaware of violence, and didn't expect violence to be so common.
2. It desensitizes us. The more violence we watch, the less is affects us physically. The level of violence that excites a person's body to a certain point must continually increase to keep effecting the same reaction. As we become hardened to violence and horror on the screen, we also become jaded, without realizing it, to real-life violence.
3. It makes us more aggressive. A person who watches violent media, when presented with a conflict situation, is more liable to think of a violent solution as a viable one, and quicker to resort to such a solution
The third part of this book deals with video games, which have much the same effect as violent TV and movies. Further, however:
1. They train players to kill. Michael Carneal, a 14 year old kid who had never fired a gun before, went on a spree one day. 8 shots to 8 people, all in the head or upper torso. This inexperienced kid killed like a Special Forces vet. Video games didn't make him kill, but he (and many others) could never have been so deadly without them.
2. Video Games lower the resistence to killing. One of the greatest innovations in military technology between WWII (where on average 15% of soldiers actually fired at the enemy) and Vietnam (90% fire rate) was the movement from bulleyes to silouhettes in targeting practice. Video games are even better. Playing them, one becomes used to shooting at human figures. A first person shooter player just doesn't have same the resistence to shooting another human as a non-player.
In sum, video games don't make people kill, but they do make them damn good at it, and they do lower internal resistences which might otherwise prevent someone from killing.
I said that there were three parts in this book, but there is actually a fourth. Both authors are parents, and end the book in practical advice about how to talk to kids about simulated violence.
If you watch a lot of violent media or play a lot of violent video games, this book does call for some self-examination. It is difficult, however. How can you tell if you are desensitized? How can you tell if you are fearful, or aggressive? I can only say that I have, long before reading this book, been finding myself more senstive to violence, less aggressive, and less fearful of other's aggression since I have stopped watching TV and stopped playing video games.
The most Eye Opening Book on children and violence.......2005-09-07
This book is definitely an eye opener for parents and future parents. Mr. Grossman has packed this book full of knowledge that will "without a doubt" keep your child more safe and less likely to turn to violence. He gives you excellent statistics, knowledge, case studies, and powerful tips that WILL keep your child safe and on the road to success. This book is the best violence+children book I have read. Excellent work and a must read for all parents.
Highly credible with an interesting approach.......2005-05-27
The authors explore the possibility that violence committed by young people results from what they learn through television, movies, and video games. They cite scientific studies and research to emphasize that children actually learn how to kill by viewing these games and programs. It takes an in-depth look at media violence, but does not touch on the other media-related social problems.
Average customer rating:
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Preventing Teen Violence: A Guide for Parents and Professionals (Contemporary Psychology)
Sherri N. McCarthy , and
Claudio Simon Hutz
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Adolescent Psychology
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ASIN: 0275982467 |
Book Description
Ever since the killings at Columbine High School created a renewed focus on the problems of adolescent aggression, professionals in education, criminal justice, and social services have been seeking ways to curb its rising tide. This volume examines adolescent aggression from many perspectives--biological, psychological, and social--and analyzes some of the contributing factors to this growing problem. Written by internationally recognized experts in adolescent psychology, this book not only covers the causes of teen violence but, more important, offers solutions. McCarthy, Hutz, and their contributors reveal the precursors to violent behavior, and provide strategies for working with adolescents to prevent future violence. The symptoms and strategies are described clearly in a way that can be understood and adapted by parents, schools, social service agencies, and criminal justice institutions. Topics include: substance abuse; suicide and self-harm; sexual aggression; anger management and impulse control; gang violence; school violence; bullying; resilience; and increasing critical thinking skills. This book is a must-read for anyone who lives, works, or comes in contact with youth.
Book Description
The majority of African American children live in homes without their fathers, but the proportion of African American children living in intact, two-parent families has risen significantly since 1995. Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society looks at father absence from two sides, offering an in-depth analysis of how the absence of African American fathers affects their children, their relationships, and society as a whole, while countering the notion that father absence and family fragmentation within the African American community is inevitable. Editors Obie Clayton, Ronald B. Mincy, and David Blankenhorn lead a diverse group of contributors—encompassing a range of disciplines and ideological perspectives—who all agree that father absence among black families is one of the most pressing social problems today. In part I, the contributors offer possible explanations for the decline in marriage among African American families. William Julius Wilson believes that many men who live in the inner city no longer consider marriage an option because their limited economic prospects do not enable them to provide for a family. Part II considers marriage from an economic perspective, emphasizing that it is in part a wealth-producing institution. Maggie Gallagher points out that married people earn, invest, and save more than single people, and that when marriage rates are low in a community, it is the children who suffer most. In part III, the contributors discuss policies to reduce absentee fatherhood. Wornie Reed demonstrates how public health interventions, such as personal development workshops and work-related skill-building services, can be used to address the causes of fatherlessness. Wade Horn illustrates the positive results achieved by fatherhood programs, especially when held early in a man's life. In the last chapter, Enola Aird notes that from 1995 to 2000, the proportion of African American children living in two-parent, married couple homes rose from 34.8 to 38.9 percent—a significant increase indicating the possible reversal of the long-term shift toward black family fragmentation.
Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society provides an in-depth look at a problem affecting millions of children while offering proof that the trend of father absence is not irrevocable.
Customer Reviews:
Black Marriage and Fatherhood by the Numbers.......2006-11-07
This book uses numbers to encourage black men to marry and be full-time fathers. The contributors are both male and female. In some articles, race is just tacked in: "Fatherlessness is a problem in America, oh yeah, especially in black communities."
This book was written by numbers crunchers and will only impress those who have full faith in numbers. There is no advice about how to get a dad to pay child support. There is no suggestions on how to get a man or father to propose to a woman. The final third of the book looks at fatherhood initiatives. It tries to apply practice to theory, but it is not simplistic. It too is very academic.
This book says children, including black children, are financially and emotionally better off in married-couple homes than single-headed (usually by the mother) homes. Still, the book is not sexist. It never makes essentialist claims like "Only a black man can raise a black son!" The book never brings up interracial marriage; the tacit suggestion is that when a black man marries, it will be with a black woman. Readers in interracial unions may feel wrongfully overlooked in this book. The book is heterosexist in many ways. Contributors lament that all black men aren't married without remembering that some black men wouldn't want to marry any woman and those black men in love with each other are not legally allowed to marry in most states. One contributor even writes, "Married men do better in the employment arena because employers know they are heterosexual." The homophobia of said employers is never condemned or commented upon.
Though not a huge book, it may be hard for some to follow. I found myself being informed about topics A, B, C, and D, but never understanding how the authors try to connect A to D. I saw many trees but never really understand how the forest was being grown. This book continually says class-privileged, employed black men are the most likely of their group to get and stay married; I think this group is also the people most likely to read this book (and pat themselves on the back).
Average customer rating:
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Art of Parenting in a Changing Society: A Sensible Approach to Contemporary Child Rearing (195p)
John F. Miller
Manufacturer: Franciscan Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Marriage & Family
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ASIN: 0819907618 |
Book Description
Evidence suggests that some forms of domestic crimes are growing at an alarming rate. An epidemic of violence and maltreatment within the home and between intimates exists, often as part of an interrelated cycle: abuse victim becomes violent abuser. This book will be of interest to educators, students and professionals in the fields of child health and welfare, criminal justice, women's studies, gerontology, sociology and related areas. Part I is an introduction on domestic criminality that includes an historical review, demographic studies, and a discussion of medical treatments for victims. Issues such as domestic fatalities, battered women and men, conjugal rape, and abuse of elders are covered in Part II. An examination of child maltreatment by neglect and sexual abuse is discussed in Part III and symptoms of domestic criminality are covered in Part IV. Part V addresses theories, causes, and explanations of domestic violence, attempting to bridge gaps between existing studies. The characteristics of incarcerated domestic criminals are reviewed in Part VI; a discussion of efforts to help victims and decrease the level of domestic violence is provided in Part VII. Notes, suggested additional readings, and a bibliography are included.
Average customer rating:
- paranoid pursuits: the FBI against the refugees
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Communazis: FBI Surveillance of German Emigre Writers
Alexander Stephan
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
1945 - Present
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ASIN: 0300082029 |
Book Description
Thousands of writers, artists, filmmakers, and intellectuals fled Germany in the 1930s. Many settled in the United States, hoping to find allies against Nazism and a safe refuge from Hitler’s Gestapo. But in America nearly all of the exiled authors—among them Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Mann, his brother Heinrich, dramatist Bertolt Brecht, and novelists Erich Remarque and Lion Feuchtwanger—became the subjects of intense suspicion and government surveillance. This riveting book, based on secret FBI files released for the first time to Alexander Stephan under the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, reveals the disturbing details and the surprising extent of government surveillance operations conducted against German exiles during World War II and the McCarthy era.
Not only the FBI but also the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and other agencies spied on the German émigrés. Wiretaps were installed, mail was routinely opened and read, records of visitors were maintained. Searches—not always with legal warrants—were conducted, informants hired, and connections to exile writers established (Thomas Mann’s daughter, Erika, volunteered her insights). Stephan sets these activities in historical context and discusses the widespread xenophobia and paranoia that surrounded Nazism and Communism, which were frequently conflated in the public imagination. The author illuminates the relationship not only between German anti-Nazis and U.S. politics of the period but also between intellectuals and the modern surveillance state.
Customer Reviews:
paranoid pursuits: the FBI against the refugees.......2002-08-25
As Hitler consolidated his grip on power in Germany during the 1930s, thousands of intellectuals, Jews, Communists, artists, and dissidents found themselves under increasing pressure to leave. As the Nazis filled the booming concentration camps with their various opponents, many of these justly frightened targets of Nazi repression fled Germany for safer harbors beyond the reach of Nazi influence or control. But as the decade progressed, the sphere of "safe harbors" diminished, and in a decade of Depression, xenophobia, and rising national chauvinism, these refugees faced hostility and suspicion nearly everywhere they went. Among these refugees were writers and poets like Thomas and Heinrich Mann, playwrights like Bertolt Brecht, scientists like Albert Einstein, and a wide range of others including people like Anna Seghers, Herbert Marcuse, and Theodore Adorno. Some of these refugees -- the lucky ones, in light of what happened to many of those who were forced to remain in Nazi Europe -- made it to the United States.
But the United States was also wrestling with a Depression; racism and anti-Semitism were facts of American life, and red scare paranoia already had developed a tradition in this country closely connected to anxieties about immigration and cultural modernism. However bright the intellects with which these refugees might be gifted, or however shining their intellectual and cultural achievements, they remained for J. Edgard Hoover and the FBI dangerously "Other", and therefore dangerous and suspicious. In this book Stephan documents the extensive surveillance, both legal and illegal, that the FBI pursued in attempting to identify the potential national security risk posed by these refugees, who after all were mostly from Germany, although in many cases they were Jews, Socialists, or Communists who had no sympathy with that detested and thuggish National Socialist regime. However, J. Edgar Hoover did not make much distinction between Nazis and Communists as far as the potential security threat was concerned; to Hoover, these refugees might be seen as "Communazis" -- thus the title. It is also depressing to see how some of these refugees turned on others, working as informants for the FBI, intensifying the web of suspicion and paranoia under which these hapless refugees were forced to exist.
As far as I am concerned, this extensive FBI surveillance of refugees and dissidents from a brutal, racist regime was both deplorable and useless (it is telling that Hoover saw the fact that many of these refugees were wanted by the German police as a mark against the refugees -- even if the police were the notorious Gestapo). But even if the reader does not share my view on this, the reader will find in the pages of Stephan's book highly informative. It is a useful documentation of the systematic national police surveillance of private individuals, which occurred as part of the development of the national security state apparatus that emerged during and after the Second World War. Whatever one's views of Hoover and the FBI, one will find this book a valuable addition to studies on domestic police surveillance against real or potential political dissent.
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