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Mary Previte Discusses Life in a Juvenile Detention Center.

Mary Previte, superintendent of the Camden County (NJ) Youth Center. Previte, the great granddaughter of missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor, grew up in China with her missionary parents. During World War II, she and her fellow students and teachers spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp. Previte credits the structure her teachers' created with making the horrific experience bearable. For the past twenty years, Previte has run the youth center, a holding center for boys and girls charged with serious crimes. She has applied the lessons of her teachers to the center, creating a place of structure and security for children used to violent, chaotic lives. Her new book, "Hungry Ghosts" (Zondervan), relates her experience as head of this acclaimed youth center and her own life story.

23:03
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Other segments from the episode on May 31, 1994

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, May 31, 1994: Interview with Mary Previte; Obituary for Red Rodney; Obituary for Sonny Sharrock.
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13:24

Remembering Red Rodney.

Jazz musicians Red Rodney and Sonny Sharrock. They're both important jazz figures who recently died. We will rebroadcast previous interviews with both Rodney was a trumpeter and band leader. He rose through the big band ranks and played in Charlie Parker's quintet. He was known as one of jazz's best improvisers. And he was known for regaling journalists with his stories-- often of dubious veracity. (Rebroadcast of 6/15/1990)

Obituary
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08:55

Remembering Sonny Sharrock.

Sonny Sharrock was a guitarist. His genre was the free-jazz movement of the late 1960's Jon Pareles said in the New York Times that Sharrock's "guitar solos streaked and clanged, using blistering speed and raw noise to create music that had both the openness of jazz and power of rock." (Rebroadcast of 10/23/1991)

Obituary

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16:06

Working With Youths Who Have Committed Crimes.

Mary Previte. She's the administrator of the Camden County Youth Center. Over the 19 years she's been at the CCYC, Previte has witnessed the increase of violence in our society, and the effects on among America's young. Previte says that most of the kids she sees live in terror, knowing violence as the only way to express their emotions. Fourteen years ago Previte started a student newspaper called "What's Happening", establishing a dialogue between herself, the kids, and the community.

Interview
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46:32

Writer Lorenzo Carcaterra.

Former New York Daily News reporter and author Lorenzo Carcaterra. His first book, A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder, was about growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen, the son of a violent, abusive man who none-the-less loved his son. Carcaterra learned as a teenager that his father had murdered his first wife. Carcaterra's newest book Sleepers, (Ballantine Books) is also about growing up in Hell's Kitchen and the bond of friendship between him and three friends.

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