by Mark H. Moore

About the author: Mark H. Moore is the Guggenheim Professor in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

By all accounts, violent crimes—homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault—are on the decline in the United States. Even so, there is an important reason for society to be concerned: America is now experiencing a historically unprecedented epidemic of youth violence. Even as overall levels of violent crime have diminished over the last half decade, rates at which young people aged 14–18 have attacked and been victimized by one another have increased dramatically. Both offending and victimization rates for this age group are now at historical peaks.

Reasons for Concern

An important social-science finding of the last decade is that citizens’ fears of crime are tied less closely...