Chapter Preface

For many people, the term “youth violence” is commonly associated with school shootings or robberies and murders committed by young gang members. However, youth violence can also include sexual assaults and other forms of violence against women. On June 11, 2000, more than two dozen men reportedly groped, stripped, and robbed as many as sixty women in New York City’s Central Park. Although a few of the suspects were men in their thirties, the majority of those arrested were young men in their teens and early twenties. Many questions have been raised in the wake of this incident, perhaps most importantly, why it occurred in the first place.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez argues that the attacks on the women were caused at least in part by misogynistic...