born, he says, 12 had divorced parents or were born out of wedlock. In 1992, that number had quadrupled to 60 children for every 100 born. Throw abortion into the mix, and the number shoots up to 92 per 100. (4) John Dilulio asserts that "each generation of crime-prone boys has been about three times as dangerous as the one before it." And, he argues, the downhill slide into utter moral bankruptcy is about to speed up because each generation of youth criminals is growing up in more extreme conditions of "moral poverty" than the one before it. Mr. Dilulio definesmoral poverty as "growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults in abusive, violence-ridden, fatherless, Godless, and jobless settings." The "super-predator", as told to a Washington press gathering by DiIulio, is a breed of criminal so dangerous that even the older inmates working their way through life sentences complain that their youthful counterparts are out of control. He describes these teen criminals as"radically present-oriented". Because their time horizon may be as short as the next guard's shift, they have no capacity to defer gratification for the sake of the future. When these "super- predators" were asked by DiIulio or other inmates if they would commit their crimes again, mostanswer, "Why not?" DiIulio also says, they are "radically self-regarding incapable of feeling joy or pain at the joy or pain of others." (7)Hawkins 5 According to Dilulio, today's juvenile super-predators are driven by two profound developmental defects. They are radically present-oriented, perceiving no relationship between action and reaction--reward or punishment--and they are radically self-regarding. Nothing is sacred to them. They live only for what brings them pleasure and a sense of power,placing "zero value on the lives of their victims."Ultimately, concludes Mr. Dilulio, only a return to religion will restore to youth the sense of personal responsibility t...
