This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States has made many sacrifices to combat terrorism; this includes losing almost 7000 service members in the campaigns of the War on Terror. The United States has spent nearly $3 trillion on counterterrorism funding between fiscal years 2002 and 2017. Instead of being reactive in the fight against terrorism, I examine how to steer the next generation of potential terrorists in another direction. Using mentor programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Rancho Cielo as an exploratory proof of concept, I investigate the role proactive mentorship programs have on at-risk youth in a variety of social and culturally diverse settings. At-risk youth that are exposed to mentorship programs throughout the world where they develop sincere and lasting relationships with their mentors will be less vulnerable to being drawn into a gang or terrorist group. Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces and the hero's journey serve as the framework of analysis for the mentor programs worldwide and specifically how a mentor inserts him- or herself into the life of an at-risk youth. The examined mentor programs and relationships revealed some positive effects; however, the results are unclear because the programs have only been recently implemented—more time is required to understand lasting results. Not all at-risk youth will benefit from mentorship; however, the programs' efforts enable some misguided youth the opportunity to live a life free of crime.
This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Exploring various mentorship programs for at-risk youth around the world may provide insight as to what practices work, why they work, and how they can be employed elsewhere. A qualitative study of varying cases of at-risk youth mentorship throughout the world will highlight commonalities and constants that make them effective. The selected cases will be analyzed using the narrative written by Joseph Campbell in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I have chosen Campbell's framework because the hero's journey can be easily related to the challenges that at-risk youth face. Others have leveraged Campbell's hero's journey as well. Most notably, George Lucas, the director of the Star Wars movies. Campbell's narrative directly influenced the relationships built by Lucas within the movie series such as Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas uses Campbell's outline for the role of the mentor figure: an archetypal teacher who guides the hero through dangerous territory (Joseph Campbell interview with Bill Moyers, June 21, 1988). Campbell describes these mentors as the "helpful crone/fairy godmother" and "supernatural helper" in his scholarly review of world mythology (1949). Campbell develops seventeen stages of his monomyth to describe the hero's journey. However, I condense them to six. These six stages of the hero's journey generate key questions about how a mentor inserts himself/herself into the life of a mentee.
