AIRED: November 2, 2015– 11 am PST
TITLE: “America’s Safest City Delinquency and Modernity in Suburbia”
Since the mid-1990s, the fast-growing suburb of Amherst, NY has been voted by numerous publications as one of the safest places to live in America. Yet, like many of America’s seemingly idyllic suburbs, Amherst is by no means without crime—especially when it comes to adolescents. In America’s Safest City, noted juvenile justice scholar Simon I. Singer uses the types of delinquency seen in Amherst as a case study illuminating the roots of juvenile offending and deviance in modern society. If we are to understand delinquency, Singer argues, we must understand it not just in impoverished areas, but in affluent ones as well.
Singer compares the most delinquent teens he surveys with the least delinquent, analyzing the circumstances that did or did not lead them to deviance and the ways in which they confront their personal difficulties, societal discontents, and serious troubles.
Don’t miss this startling interview as Amercia’s Safest City describes on how parents, teachers, coaches and officials can recognize a teen’s need for ongoing sources of trust and empathy, allowing them to become what Singer terms ‘relationally modern’ individuals better equipped to deal with the trials and tribulations of modern life. A unique and comprehensive study, America’s Safest City is a major new addition to scholarship on juveniles and crime in America.
ABOUT SIMON I SINGER
Simon I. Singer is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Previously, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Buffalo, SUNY. He is the author of Recriminalizing Delinquency: Violent Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice Reform (1996), winner of the American Sociological Association’s 1999 Distinguished Scholar Award in Crime, Law and Deviance
