Trends.

The 1990s was a period of violence for the youth in the United States. The number of serious crimes committed by and against juveniles rose dramatically in the first half of the decade, reaching historically high rates. Although violent crime began to decline by mid decade, drug offenses continued to increase. National statistics also indicated that not only were youth committing more crimes, but they were increasingly the victims as well. There were also several highly publicized and deadly school shootings involving young assailants. The public, government, and courts struggled to find explanations for and solutions to teen violence.

Columbine.

On 20 April 1999 gunfire erupted in a suburban high school in Littleton, Colorado, near Denver. Seniors Eric Harris, eighteen, and Dylan Klebold, seventeen, killed fifteen people total, and sent more than twenty others to hospitals with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, before turning...