Headline: “Youth jailed for 10 years for killing visitor”
When Curtis Joel Foster chased down Canadian tourist Teresa “Terry” Schwarzfeld at Long Beach last year and beat her to death he was 24 years old and in the middle of a one man violent crime wave that had been going on at Long Beach for over a year. Foster committed multiple robberies, thefts, assaults and is or was charged with at least one rape of a tourist.
Foster is not a “youth” by any stretch of imagination, but that’s how the Barbados Advocate described him in their headline.
Was the paper trying to mitigate the public disgust at the light 10 year sentence by indicating that Foster is a “youth” and therefore somehow less responsible for his actions?
This is not the first time we’ve seen the term “youth” misapplied by the Barbados Advocate to describe adult men in their mid-20’s who commit violent crimes. We’ve noticed that the paper habitually refers to adult criminals as “youths” even if they are talking about a gang of not-quite 30-year-old thugs hanging out at the T.
Is it that “youths” are somehow less threatening to our image?
Words matter, so we’re calling the Barbados Advocate out for their idiocy… or their propaganda.
What do you think folks? Have you noticed this trend by the paper? Why do the people at the Barbados Advocate continue to describe 24 year old adult males as “youths”?