Anthropology Annual General Lecture: Juvenile Murder, Vengeance, and Grief

Juvenile Murder, Vengeance, and Grief with keynote speaker Dr. Laurence Ralph

Dr. Ralph’s talk will examine the ramifications of juvenile incarceration. A central focus of his discussion will be juvenile murder, as he discusses two separate, yet interrelated, cases in which teenage boys of color were killed by their peers. He asks: How does a victim’s family heal from homicide? Drawing from the literature in child psychology as well as the sociology and anthropology of urban violence, he argues that, as a society, our idea of accountability is incomplete. Those who the police have accused of crimes—and even those who have committed them—need to be humanized. By conducting in-depth life histories of young people who the juvenile justice system has harmed, he hopes to shed light on the violence they encounter and the reasons they encounter it.