Public Heroes, Private Felons: Athletes and Crimes Against Women - Softcover

Benedict, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555533825 ISBN 13: 9781555533823

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 1999

Synopsis

While arrests of celebrated college and professional athletes for crimes against women escalate at an alarming rate, popular sports figures routinely escape accountability for their offenses. Shielded by a lucrative sports industry that fosters the athlete's positive image as role model to the nation's youth, few players are successfully prosecuted in the courts and they rarely face sanctions on their eligibility to play. In a work that is sure to generate heated debate, Jeff Benedict thoroughly investigates for the first time athletes' abusive behavior, delving into the full spectrum of complex factors that give rise to and perpetuate the disturbing pattern of frequent sexual and domestic violence toward women. Drawing on extensive and unprecedented interviews with athletes, victims, attorneys, coaches, team officials, and others, Benedict provides an in-depth examination of several incidents of rape, gang rape, and assault by successful sports figures, including the cases of Mike Tyson, Christian Peter and other members of the University of Nebraska football team, and former Boston Celtic Marcus Webb. Benedict's probe confronts such controversial issues as race, class, the groupie phenomenon, the sexually permissive lifestyle of many athletes, the consensual sex defense, and the sports industry's indifference to recruiting or drafting talented athletes with prior criminal records. Benedict concludes with sound proposals for implementing tougher measures and sanctions at both the college and professional levels in order to stem the disquieting number of athletes who commit violent crimes against women.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeff Benedict, former Director of Research at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, is the co-author of Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL. He has published numerous newspaper and journal articles on the role of athletes in society, and has appeared on several network and cable television shows as an expert on athletes and crime. He lives in Boston.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A sports sociologist's provocative, sometimes sensationalistic study of a phenomenon that's gaining increasing public attention. Observes Benedict, ``Because of the physical nature of athletics; the aggressive, confrontational, supermacho attitudes surrounding them; and the social approval afforded to celebrity athletes, the sports industry has in effect embraced those men who demonstrated a disdain for women through repeated acts of criminal violence.'' To see the phenomenon of athletes who rape and batter from all angles, Benedict interviewed nearly 300 subjects, including groupies, victims, prosecutors, university administrators, and athletes. His findings reveal many disturbing facts and trends: how the small minority of women who make themselves available to jocks help ``to exacerbate the derogatory attitudes held by athletes''; how peer pressure creates an environment for conduct most individuals would find reprehensible; and how even when they are held accountable for their actions, athletes too often get off with minimal sentences, the matter soon forgotten by the public. More alarming still is how some women are doubly victimized--brutalized and later humiliated, as was the case with one woman who brought suit against members of the Cincinnati Bengals football team. After a court verdict favorable to the players, one of the defendants did a celebratory ``touchdown dance'' for the press. Benedict occasionally strays from his area of expertise, particularly when analyzing the psychology of individuals. However, he is dead-on when describing the group dynamics of athletes and how this camaraderie and shared sense of privilege can lead to trouble. A troubling look at how societies create and then turn a blind eye to a class of citizens who, in the words of one retired player, can't ``tell the difference [between force and consent] anymore.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1555533825
• ISBN 13: 9781555533823
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224