julia and herman Schwendinger

Welcome to our Web site! It was originally designed for friends and colleagues interested in 'works in progress' dealing with such topics as human rights, civil liberties, crimes against women, delinquency and adolescent subcultures. 

We are publishing the civil liberties article below on information technology and weapons of mass repression because commercial publication would take too long and the current situation is so urgent. The more widely the information about current affairs is disseminated, the better.  Please share it with your friends and colleagues. 

Background Highlights

Julia Schwendinger has a doctorate in criminology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a masters in social work from Columbia University. She and her husband have received awards from the Crime, Law and Deviance Section of the American Sociology Association, the Western Society of Criminology and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. They have also received awards from the Critical Criminology Division and the Women’s Division of the American Society of Criminology.

Julia was a co-founder of the first anti-rape crisis group in the U.S. She was a private consultant providing presentencing reports on offenders for defense attorneys and judges. She has been a Deputy Parole Commissioner and Director of Women’s Resource Center for San Francisco Jails. She has also worked as a private investigator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is listed in Who’s Who of American Women.

Herman Schwendinger has a doctoral degree in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles and a masters from Columbia University. In addition to receiving awards from the professional associations mentioned above, he is an elected member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He retired as a Professor Emeritus from the State University of New York, New Paltz. He received the coveted State University of New York Excellence Award "in recognition of sustained, outstanding performance and superior service to the State University and the State of New York."

Both Julia and Herman are affiliated with the Department of Criminology, University of South Florida. They have been Research Associates at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California at Berkeley and exchange scholars at universities in Berlin, St. Petersburg and Moscow. They were the first Americans to visit the School of Law in Alma Aty (in Kazakhstan).

Clicking on this (blue) line will connect you to version 6/08/03 of an essay entitled,

Information Technology and Weapons of Mass Repression

This essay on civil liberties indicts the Bush administration for ignoring traditional policing policies developed by European countries to deal with terrorism. It accuses the administration of exploiting the public reaction to the heinous crimes conducted by terrorists on Sept 11, 2001. It asserts that this exploitation is being instigated by the greatest oil and power grab in history. In addition, it is using the public fear of terrorism to justify an unprecedented plundering of public revenues by corporate interests.

Mainly, the essay focuses on the role of information technology in the development of 'weapons of mass repression." It indicates that Nazi Germany was the historical precursor for adopting data processing equipment for mass repression. It also recalls the record of U.S. government unconstitutional surveillance of political dissidents. It points out that the Bush administration's attempts to get a mass database of political dissenters occurred prior to Sept 11 during the Quebec anti-globalization demonstrations. This timing suggests that the administration would have attempted to subvert civil liberties regardless of the 9/11 attacks.

The essay also recalls the egregious harms described in Frank Donner’s classic, The Age of Surveillance, which is based upon his long experience as a practicing attorney and Director of the ACLU’s Project on Political Surveillance. Donner’s work describes the endless number of ‘dirty tricks’ and ‘black bag’ operations conducted throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s by government agencies. Furthermore, affiliation with the FBI, CIA, IRS, Military intelligence agencies, etc., enabled agents in these ‘intelligence agencies’ to get away with slandering political dissenters, forging their signatures, burglarizing their homes and offices, tapping their phones unlawfully, instigating loss of employment, breaking-up and harassing their families, disrupting political demonstrations, encouraging unlawful arrests and unwarranted IRS audits, and so on. Donner’s work also points to the use of informers and agents provocateurs who, under the orders of officials, even encouraged assassinations. These subversive government policies also targeted numerous organizations including the ACLU, Institute for Policy Studies, Ford Foundation, Lawyers Guild, etc., because of their dedication to social reform and social justice. The essay describes the growing resistance against the attacks on civil liberties. It calls for an aggressive campaign aimed at disarming weapons of mass repression in the United States. 

A brief version of this essay was presented on January 9, 2002, at a Conference on "Globalization and the National State" held at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, Hanoi, Vietnam. 

TWO ARTICLES ON ADOLESCENT SUBCULTURES AND PEER NETWORKS

Clicking on the blue titles below will display material from a nearly completed book-length manuscript. The first title, "Detecting Fundamental Units of Adolescent Subcultures," contains sociographs based on friendship ties among several thousand high school youth. These graphs provide surprising information that confirms some of the propositions advanced by our theory of adolescent subcultures.

 1. Detecting Fundamental Units of Adolescent Subcultures

This article, "Detecting Fundamental Units of Adolescent Subcultures," provides graphic displays of informal adolescent networks not available elsewhere.  In comparison to networks of 'group relations' displayed in our article published in the British Journal of Sociology (March, 1997), these displays represent 'individual-level' relationships.

2. Characteristics of Adolescent Subcultures

This article, "Some Characteristics of Adolescent Subcultures," provides a brief description of related research that underscores the seminal importance of the material on detecting fundamental units. 

(Note: Graphs, texts, etc. shown on these pages are Herman and Julia Schwendinger's intellectual property and may not be reproduced without their expressed permission.)