The Theory of Normalization of Deviance

A decades-old battle is re-emerging over how sex is presented in the classroom, as the Trump administration gives support to “sexual risk avoidance” programs that promote abstinence.

Napster, created by an 18-year-old developer, exploded across college campuses across the country in 1999. With a mouse click, music lovers gained free access to their favorite tunes. The record industry took to the courts to shut down the upstart company. But a generation of consumers had tasted instant entertainment on demand, and there was no turning back.

States are reconsidering life prison sentences of people who were given mandatory life terms as juveniles – a practice since ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. At the time, in the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of  a new breed of remorseless teen killers, so-called superpredators.