scholarly journals Megan's Law: Crime and Democracy in Late Modern America

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 1111-1150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Simon

To an unprecedented degree American society at the turn of the twentieth century is governed through crime. Nearly three percent of adults are in the custody of the correctional system. Crime and fear of crime enter into a large part of the fundamental decisions in life: where to live, how to raise your family, where to locate your business, where and when to shop, and so on. The crime victim has become the veritable outline of a new form of political subjectivity. This essay explores the complex entanglements of democracy and governing through crime. The effort to build democratic governance after the American Revolution was carried out in part through the problem of crime and punishment. Today, however, the enormous expansion of governing through crime endangers the effort to reinvent democracy for the twenty-first century.

Author(s):  
Richard C. Crepeau

A multibillion-dollar entertainment empire, the National Football League is a coast-to-coast obsession that borders on religion and dominates our sports-mad culture. But today's NFL also provides a stage for playing out important issues roiling American society. This updated and expanded edition of NFL Football observes the league's centennial by following the NFL into the twenty-first century, where off-the-field concerns compete with touchdowns and goal line stands for headlines. Richard C. Crepeau delves into the history of the league and breaks down the new era with an in-depth look at the controversies and dramas swirling around pro football today:  Tensions between players and Commissioner Roger Goodell over collusion, drug policies, and revenue, including analysis of the 2020 collective bargaining agreement  The firestorm surrounding Colin Kaepernick and protests of police violence and inequality  Andrew Luck and others choosing early retirement over the threat to their long-term health  Paul Tagliabue's role in covering up information on concussions  The Super Bowl's evolution into a national holiday Authoritative and up to the minute, NFL Football continues the epic American success story.


Daedalus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214
Author(s):  
Richard Alba

Abstract The number of youth from mixed majority-minority families, in which one parent is White and the other minority, is surging in the early twenty-first century. This development is challenging both our statistical schemes for measuring ethnicity and race as well as our thinking about their demographic evolution in the near future. This essay summarizes briefly what we know about mixed minority-White Americans and includes data about their growing numbers as well as key social characteristics of children and adults from mixed backgrounds. The essay concludes that this phenomenon highlights weaknesses in our demographic data system as well as in the majority-minority narrative about how American society is changing.


Author(s):  
Simon Wendt

The conclusion provides a brief discussion of the DAR’s significance vis-à-vis the historiography of American conservatism and gender. While it remains to be seen how recent developments will affect the DAR’s commemorative, educational, and patriotic activism in the years to come, its history reminds us that the Daughters played a vital role in shaping and disseminating conservative notions of nationalism that continue to reverberate in the new millennium. This chapter examines the organization’s activities in the twenty-first century; in particular, it tries to explain why so many American women, including numerous African Americans, continue to join the organization and what it means to be a Daughter of the American Revolution during the era of Donald Trump.


Author(s):  
Stanley N. Katz

Today, as the demographics and culture of America change, the demands made on any number of social, cultural, and educational institutions that had their origins in the traditions of Europe and earlier American history seem almost impossible to reconcile. The current demand that these institutions serve all members of American society—people of a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and interests—and at a higher technological level than ever before, gathers increasing weight, weight that threatens these institutions. At the same time, those with a vested interest in universities, museums, social services, and arts organizations desperately try to shore up their beloved institutions from within, with the result that no one is pleased. Reform attempts seem to lead to the creation of yet more bureaucracy, further stifling institutional ability to respond to the new needs. Goals apparently so simple and clear as "We must better educate our youth to compete in the new world economy" become complicated and muddled. To complicate all the more this process of "change"—to use the current buzzword—we are coming to realize that in tinkering with our traditional institutions, we no longer have confidence in the traditional ways of passing along our values, nor is there a strong consensus on what those values are. William E. Brock, chairman of the Wingspread Group, which was convened to study higher education, states that we must pass along to the next generation the "critical importance of honesty, decency, integrity, compassion, and personal responsibility in a democratic society." Who could disagree? The problem is that people of goodwill no longer necessarily define terms such as "integrity" and "personal responsibility" the same way. So while everyone of every political persuasion is able to agree that something must be done, it has become almost impossible to agree on what to do. Goals become either so idealistic that they are laughable or so watered down, in order not to offend any interest group, that they are useless. In today's political climate, it is clear that to call for "major reform" plays well in the press but can actually forestall any needed change.


Author(s):  
Jürgen Martschukat

This book explains the unbending ideal of the nuclear family and how it has seeped so deeply into American society and consciousness without ever becoming the actual norm for most people in the nation. It presents the rich diversity of family lives in American history from the American Revolution to the twenty-first century and at the same time the persistence and normative power of the nuclear family model. American society—one of the major arguments—is “governed through the family,” and to govern, in this sense, is “to structure the possible field of action.” To make this broad examination of the discourse and practice of the family in American life more accessible, this book focuses on the relations of fathers, families, and society. Throughout American history “the father” has been posed as provider and moral leader of his family, American society, and the nation. At the same time power and difference were established around “the father,” and fatherhood meant many different things for different people. To tell this history of fatherhood, families, and American society, the author presents biographical “close-ups” of twelve iconic characters, embedded in contextual “long shots” so that readers can see the enduring power of the family and father ideals along with the complexity and varieties of everyday life in American history. Each protagonist covers a crucial period or event in American history, presents a different family constellation, and makes a different argument with regard to how American society is governed through the family.


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