Friends of Justice

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“Early in the 1980s, baseless conspiracy theories about cults committing mass child abuse spread around the country. Talk shows and news programs fanned fears, and the authorities investigated hundreds of allegations. Even as cases slowly collapsed and skepticism prevailed, defendants went to prison, families were traumatized and millions of dollars were spent on prosecutions.”

Read the article by Alan Yuhas in The New York Times.

And register for this important free event sponsored by the NCRJ.

Please join us for this important event!

https://youtu.be/v71MsDLV7ig

On 3/5/21 Paul Renfro and Emily Horowitz had a conversation about Paul’s new book: Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Beginning with Etan Patz’s disappearance in Manhattan in 1979, a spate of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children stoked anxieties about the threats of child kidnapping and exploitation. Publicized through an emerging twenty-four-hour news cycle, these cases supplied evidence of what some commentators dubbed “a national epidemic” of child abductions committed by “strangers.”

In this book, Paul M. Renfro (Assistant Professor of History, Florida State University) narrates how the bereaved parents of missing and slain children turned their grief into a mass movement and, alongside journalists and policymakers from both major political parties, propelled a moral panic. Leveraging larger cultural fears concerning familial and national decline, these child safety crusaders warned Americans of a supposedly widespread and worsening child kidnapping threat, erroneously claiming that as many as fifty thousand American children fell victim to stranger abductions annually. The actual figure was (and remains) between one hundred and three hundred, and kidnappings perpetrated by family members and acquaintances occur far more frequently. Yet such exaggerated statistics-and the emotionally resonant images and narratives deployed behind them-led to the creation of new legal and cultural instruments designed to keep children safe and to punish the “strangers” who ostensibly wished them harm. Ranging from extensive child fingerprinting drives to the milk carton campaign, from the AMBER Alerts that periodically rattle Americans’ smart phones to the nation’s sprawling system of sex offender registration, these instruments have widened the reach of the carceral state and intensified surveillance practices focused on children.

Stranger Danger reveals the transformative power of this moral panic on American politics and culture, showing how ideas and images of endangered childhood helped build a more punitive American state.

2/24/21. New York Law School hosted a conversation about the role that restorative justice can play in addressing sexual violence. Professor Susan Abraham moderates the discussion between Vivianne Guevera — Director of Social Work and Mitigation at the Federal Defenders of New York — and Judith Levine — journalist, essayist, and author whose work explores the intersections of the body and the body politic. Levine most recently co-authored the book, The Feminist & the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, with Erica Meiners in 2020.

This event was co-sponsored by the Legal Association for Women and the Criminal Law Society.

View this important event.

Join Susan Abraham, Vivianne Guevara, and Judith Levine, this Wednesday, February 24th at 12:50 p.m.

View this poster for details:

ICPI-Impact-Conversations-Flyer-022421-v1r2-locked

Follow this link to RSVP.

Please consider joining us on March 5 (Friday) at 11:15am (EST) with historian Paul Renfro about his fascinating new book: Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020).

You can sign-up here (it only takes a minute), and a Zoom link will be sent immediately prior to the event. More details below.

Thank you so much,

Emily Horowitz

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A Conversation with Historian & Author Paul Renfro on March 5, 2021 at 11:15am

Sign-Up Here / Zoom link will be sent immediately prior to the event

Join Paul Renfro and Emily Horowitz for a conversation about Paul’s new book: Stranger Danger:

Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Beginning with Etan Patz’s disappearance in Manhattan in 1979, a spate of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children stoked anxieties about the threats of child kidnapping and exploitation. Publicized through an emerging twenty-four-hour news cycle, these cases supplied evidence of what some commentators dubbed “a national epidemic” of child abductions committed by “strangers.”

In this book, Paul M. Renfro (Assistant Professor of History, Florida State University) narrates how the bereaved parents of missing and slain children turned their grief into a mass movement and, alongside journalists and policymakers from both major political parties, propelled a moral panic. Leveraging larger cultural fears concerning familial and national decline, these child safety crusaders warned Americans of a supposedly widespread and worsening child kidnapping threat, erroneously claiming that as many as fifty thousand American children fell victim to stranger abductions annually. The actual figure was (and remains) between one hundred and three hundred, and kidnappings perpetrated by family members and acquaintances occur far more frequently. Yet such exaggerated statistics-and the emotionally resonant images and narratives deployed behind them-led to the creation of new legal and cultural instruments designed to keep children safe and to punish the “strangers” who ostensibly wished them harm. Ranging from extensive child fingerprinting drives to the milk carton campaign, from the AMBER Alerts that periodically rattle Americans’ smart phones to the nation’s sprawling system of sex offender registration, these instruments have widened the reach of the carceral state and intensified surveillance practices focused on children.

Stranger Danger reveals the transformative power of this moral panic on American politics and culture, showing how ideas and images of endangered childhood helped build a more punitive American state.

At the heart of the conspiracy theory that stirred many in the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 was the lie that a cabal of Democratic and “deep state” pedophiles are trafficking and killing thousands of children. A demented “Save the Children” campaign led to a near coup d’etat and the death of five people. This is what people fighting for fairness for “sex offenders” are up against. How can feminism help us understand the hatred of the “sex offender”? How can social justice movements work together to end personal, political, and state violence?

With analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offender contends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state’s unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible?

Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.

On February 5th, Judith had a public discussion with Judith Levine about her book. (Both are Directors of the National Center for Reason and Justice.

If you missed this event, you can watch the video recording by clicking here.