Hillary Clinton
In reply to the discussion: No Hillary Clinton did NOT call Black Children "Super Predators".. [View all]Sancho
(9,073 posts)Even thought the language was popular, the term "super predator" was described and popularized by a Princeton professor.
I remember it well. There was acknowledgement that minorities were recruited into gangs, but the super predators were the people who organized the gangs regardless of race or origin. The increasing crime rate was part of every election in the early to mid-90s.
http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/27206_1.pdf
A professor of politics and public affairs on the political science faculty at Princeton University, John DiIulio, created and popularized the super- predator concept. He coined the term superpredator (1995b) to call public attention to what he characterized as a new breed of offenders, kids that have absolutely no respect for human life and no sense of the future. . . . These are stone-cold predators! (p. 23). Elsewhere, DiIulio and co-authors have described these young people as fatherless, Godless, and jobless and as radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more teenage boys, who murder, assault, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs, and create serious disorders (Bennett, DiIulio, & Walters, 1996, p. 27).
The superpredator myth gained further popularity when it was linked to forecasts by James Q. Wilson and John DiIulio of increased levels of juvenile violence. Wilson (1995) asserted that by the end of decade there will be a million more people between the ages of 14 and 17 than there are now. . . . Six percent of them will become high rate, repeat offendersthirty thousand more young muggers, killers and thieves than we have now. Get ready (p. 507). DiIulio (1995a, p. 15) made the same prediction. Media portrayals of juvenile superpredators have created the impression that juveniles are most likely to be armedheavily armedand to use guns in attacks.