Hey Bruh! Welcome back.
In Part II of The Younger They Are the Harder They Fall, we continue on this investigative journey to determine the problem we have passed down to our younger generations. In doing so, we can hopefully gather the information and courage needed to help save this generation from themselves! Again that’s a daunting task for the generation who failed to protect them or to set a better example for them. Be that as it may, we must do everything we can to heal these generational traumas and relationships so lives can be restored!
Be sure to check out part I of this series, where we dissect the devastating effects that the advancement of technology, social philosophies, and drug culture of the 1980s had on the youth of that era. Now, let us move on to the 1990s.
The Rise of the Internet and the Fall of the Innocent
The 1990s will forever be remembered as the decade when the world went online. Early in the decade, the Internet was growing steadily, but only a few people had access to it. Still, people began to hear about the “Information Super-Highway” that would change their lives forever! During this time, Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, developed a new tool for sharing internet information using hypertext called the World Wide Web. The first web page was then launched on Aug. 6, 1991.
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| World wide web / Information Highway |
The “Information Age” had arrived, and the world would never be the same! The dawning of the digital revolution also brought access to the darkness that stole the innocence of our children. A darkness that changed the trajectory of their lives. As the internet expanded so did the exploitation of children. The internet gave predators worldwide, the ability to feed their fetishes, stalk, and abduct their prey, and leave ever-lasting trauma in the hearts of children forever. On top of this, easy access to pornography led to childhood addiction. This then helped to produce some of the worst predators we have ever seen!
As personal computers began to become more affordable, harassment took on a new form as "cyberbullies" and "trolls" forced their way onto the web. This resulted in kids experiencing relentless torment and they began taking their own lives because of it. All this and more started when the information highway opened up in the 1990s. “Oh, what a wicked web we weave!”
Poverty Rates Increase in the 90s, Despite Promises of Prosperity
In 1992 William Jefferson Clinton was elected as the 42nd President of the United States! With a simple stroke of the pen, the Clinton administration ended the economic policies of the Reagan era which helped to trigger “The Great Recession" and established, “Clintonomics.”
These policies gave the US:
- the longest economic expansion
- the lowest unemployment rate
- a deficit surplus
- a historic medium income increase by the end of his two terms.
It was a time of prosperity that affected the whole country however, the inner cities, suburbs, and rural areas didn't do so well! Again, the children, (18yrs and under,) suffered the most! Overall the economic policies of the 1990s or “Clintonomics” had the same outcome that its predecessor did!
- The rich got richer.
- The poor got poorer.
So don’t be fooled by the prosperity of the 90s! While unemployment was at its lowest, crime was down, wages increased, and the economy hit all-time highs, the children of the 90s were exposed to some terrible things! The phenomena of mass shootings, the exposure of the Catholic Church sex scandal, the Oklahoma City bombing and the rise of violent domestic terrorism, and the war on crime and drugs intensified even though all the data showed that crime and drug use was on the decrease! Those among other things were in full effect during that decade and the children bore the heaviest burden in all those instances!
The Effect of Mass Incarceration on the Community
In 1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act bill was enacted. Passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, this law poured fuel on the fire of the "Tough On Crime" movement and expanded the ability for federal, state, and local governments to lock civilians up and threw away the keys!
While it did not start mass incarceration, it did over-criminalize and over-police black and brown low-income communities. This sent more people to prison for longer periods for minor offenses and penalized and punished drug use. All led to the secretly enacted laws called Collateral Consequences. Laws that would continue to punish those convicted of felonies, and misdemeanors for the rest of their lives!
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| Recidivism: One of the consequences of Mass incarceration |
Here's one provision of that law that has helped to name the United States as the country with the highest prison population and incarceration rate since its enactment.
The Myth of the "Super Predators"
The term "super predator," first appeared in a publication by American political scientist John J. DiIulio, Jr. in 1995. DiIulio predicted that a wave of teenagers driven by "moral poverty" numbering in the tens of thousands would soon be on the streets committing violent crimes. DiIulio renounced the super predator theory five years later, apologizing for its unintended consequences. Why you may ask? While Dilulio predicted that juvenile crime would increase, it instead dropped by more than half.
Conceding that he made a mistake, Dilulio regretted that he could not “put the brakes on the super-predator theory” before it took on a life of its own! This myth was responsible for the warehousing of millions of young black boys and girls! The effect of this lie destroyed their livelihoods, dreams, and futures. It also re-established that racial inequality exists and is a factor that drives the American criminal justice system!
The Meth Epidemic Reaches High School
The use of crystal meth in the United States exploded in the early 1990s. Between 1994 and 2004, methamphetamine use rose from just under two percent of the U.S. adult population to approximately five percent! In the 1990s, Mexican drug trafficking organizations set up large laboratories in California. While these massive labs can generate fifty pounds of the substance in a single weekend, smaller private labs have sprung up in kitchens and apartments, earning the drug one of its names, "stove top."
Because of tightened regulations around the sale and use of ephedrine, a pharmaceutical used to make crystal meth, the dealers who cooked up the drug in these mobile labs turned to pseudoephedrine a chemical found in many cold medicines because it was easier to obtain. The use of crystal meth by high school students more than doubled between 1990-1996! Again, what the youth of this generation lived through and continues to endure is tragic!
The greed that drives this was and is still unprecedented and the consequences have been unforgiving! In Part III of The Younger They Are, the Harder They Fall, we will resume with the chronology of negative influences that have created a generation that we have to save from itself! Starting with the technology, societal philosophy, and drug culture of the 2000s and how those influences affected the youth of that era! Stay tuned!
