The latest culture-war crusade to ban teens from smartphones and social media is just another chapter in America’s dismal, destructive save-the-children! history
Thanks for comments. I can’t believe I forgot the worst panacea-fiasco of all.
Scared Straight!
The ecstatic marvelings local papers and principals are gushing over the wonders of phone-free schools are nothing compared to the eruption of huzzahs that greeted documentaries of gleefully screaming prison lifers getting in teenagers’ faces to threaten them with rape, knifings, and beatings. Juvenile delinquency was solved! The Academy Award-, Emmy-, and George Polk-winning Scared Straight! (narrated by Peter Falk) announced. None of the terrified delinquents reoffended! it said. Reporters and politicians went wild. The program quickly spread to other states and countries, led by the United Kingdom and Norway.
Oh, wait. Investigations revealed the “documentary” mixed hype and hoax, including non-delinquent youth recruited locally, staged scenes, and thoroughly undocumented claims. Rutgers University, Department of Justice, the UK College of Policing, and a host of academic researchers unanimously found Scared Straight! participants went on to perpetrate HIGHER crime rates than similar delinquents who were not threatened with lifer mayhem. Conclusions from “ineffective” to “potentially harmful” rained down. Washington state analysts concluded each dollar spent on Scared Straight! generated over $200 in additional state delinquency costs.
Yet, as researchers puzzle, Scared Straight!’s popularity persists. The brainless sadism toward youth among many in power cannot be discounted.
Excellent work, Mike. I would also add about the ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition, that Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) also further debunked any claim of a lifesaving effect. The supposed lifesaving effect was all a mirage driven by a handful of early-adopoting states, while for the federal coerced states it was inconsequential at best or even perverse. And notably, counterintuitive as it may be, in that study not even the graduated 18/21 age limits for beer/wine vs hard liquor in some states were vindicated either (those states were disproportionately likely to be coerced late-adopters) as any better than a straight age limit of 18. So any age limit higher than 18 was a net loser in the long run, even for the early adopters whose supposed lifesaving effects evaporated after the first year or two. Oops!
I would add that the school uniforms thing is probably the silliest of all, as all one has to do is look across the proverbial pond at schools in the UK to see that it is basically a useless tool. A quick perusal on a typical day of the Daily Fail contains just as much handwringing over student misbehavior in the UK as in the USA. Except about school shootings, of course, for VERY obvious reasons.
Thanks for comments. I can’t believe I forgot the worst panacea-fiasco of all.
Scared Straight!
The ecstatic marvelings local papers and principals are gushing over the wonders of phone-free schools are nothing compared to the eruption of huzzahs that greeted documentaries of gleefully screaming prison lifers getting in teenagers’ faces to threaten them with rape, knifings, and beatings. Juvenile delinquency was solved! The Academy Award-, Emmy-, and George Polk-winning Scared Straight! (narrated by Peter Falk) announced. None of the terrified delinquents reoffended! it said. Reporters and politicians went wild. The program quickly spread to other states and countries, led by the United Kingdom and Norway.
Oh, wait. Investigations revealed the “documentary” mixed hype and hoax, including non-delinquent youth recruited locally, staged scenes, and thoroughly undocumented claims. Rutgers University, Department of Justice, the UK College of Policing, and a host of academic researchers unanimously found Scared Straight! participants went on to perpetrate HIGHER crime rates than similar delinquents who were not threatened with lifer mayhem. Conclusions from “ineffective” to “potentially harmful” rained down. Washington state analysts concluded each dollar spent on Scared Straight! generated over $200 in additional state delinquency costs.
Yet, as researchers puzzle, Scared Straight!’s popularity persists. The brainless sadism toward youth among many in power cannot be discounted.
You're very welcome, Mike. Amen to that!
Excellent work, Mike. I would also add about the ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition, that Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) also further debunked any claim of a lifesaving effect. The supposed lifesaving effect was all a mirage driven by a handful of early-adopoting states, while for the federal coerced states it was inconsequential at best or even perverse. And notably, counterintuitive as it may be, in that study not even the graduated 18/21 age limits for beer/wine vs hard liquor in some states were vindicated either (those states were disproportionately likely to be coerced late-adopters) as any better than a straight age limit of 18. So any age limit higher than 18 was a net loser in the long run, even for the early adopters whose supposed lifesaving effects evaporated after the first year or two. Oops!
Well-said as usual, Mike!
I would add that the school uniforms thing is probably the silliest of all, as all one has to do is look across the proverbial pond at schools in the UK to see that it is basically a useless tool. A quick perusal on a typical day of the Daily Fail contains just as much handwringing over student misbehavior in the UK as in the USA. Except about school shootings, of course, for VERY obvious reasons.