Persuasive Essay On Superpredators - 1769 Words

In the past, I have heard of the term superpredator in news stories but never fully knew the meaning until I did some research. There were articles upon articles of superpredators or teenage criminals, that caught my interest. My main focus became the problems the corrupt youth causes for the public and how such harmful acts can be prevented. Because I come from a low-income area, many of the kids in my community have been arrested or in and out of detention centers. This furthered my interest to find out if superpredators are a real issue the public has to face. I first wanted to know what a superpredator really meant and who they were. So, my research began. To start, I looked at Hopeless or Happening: Preventing Youth Violence, I†¦show more content†¦Broken families are the largest cause of this. Reading through the articles, I was able to make personal connections with the following aspects in relation to those I know who do not come from best home life, then act out on legal terms. Most often the case is that a juvenile had a negative experience which caused them to act out with violence, theft, or drug involvement. Many researches have shown a strong correlation between exposure to negative events and juvenile delinquency, according to the article, Superpredators. Once I got a full understanding of what made one a superpredator, I turned my attention towards the public s view of the criminals. The article, Moral Panics, discusses moral panics in regards to teenage violence. Beginning with the discussion of moral panic in colonial times, mainly based on religion, to evolutionizing to the Civil War, the Cold War and so on to modern times. The second half of the twentieth century focuses mainly on the problems of drug use and then mentions from there the incline of other types of crime: child abduction, school shootings, and mass murders. Further emphasizing on the problems that occur, Youth, Guns, and Violent Crime, suggests that yes, superpredators were the main cause of the violent outbreaks in the 1980s and 90s, however there were multiple factors that caused juveniles to create such an epidemic. Factors such as: more accessibility to handguns created teen fights into