by Franklin E. Zimring

About the author: Franklin E. Zimring is a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley.

You can get dizzy these days listening to the statistics and studies being issued about crime. On one hand, rates of crime are down modestly in most places and way down in some cities like New York. On the other hand, public anxiety remains very high. There are special efforts to focus citizen fear on projected increases in youth crime in the United States over the next ten to fifteen years. Early in 1996 the Washington-based Council on Crime in America issued a report on crime warning of “a coming storm of juvenile violence.” The House subcommittee on crime has just concluded a five-city road show on the prospects for a youth crime wave...