094: Kids Behind Bars and A Crime To Remember (the Looking For Mr. Goodbar case)
The name is a little glib, but A&E's Kids Behind Bars: Life Or Parole looks at the Supreme Court decision that forced the resentencing of juveniles given life without parole as teenagers, and Piper is back to look at the eight-episode series: the incarcerated "former kids" it chooses to focus on, the way each story is built, the perspectives of law enforcement and victims' families, and the conversation we need to keep having about the role of racial bias in sentencing practices.
Later, we looked at a better-than-average (but still kind of bad) A Crime To Remember that focused on the murder of Roseann Quinn, whose death heavily inspired Looking For Mr. Goodbar, both book and film. Half-decent re-enactments and A-plus talking-head interviewees (including the late Michelle McNamara) meant I enjoyed it, but Piper wasn't crazy about it -- and was it trying to have it both ways in terms of commenting on the sexism and victim-blaming of the time? Plus, who's going to play us in the docuseries of this podcast, Joe Berlinger's twisted knickers, and more in The Blotter Presents, Episode 094.
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SHOW NOTES
- Kids Behind Bars: Life Or Parole on A&E's page
- A Crime To Remember S03.E02, "Last Night Stand"
- Looking For Mr. Goodbar
- Judith Rossner on Wikipedia
- Emily Yoshida on post-film real-life slideshows for Vulture
- Piper Weiss's You All Grow Up And Leave Me, now out in paperback
Special Guest: Piper Weiss.