reported that 53 percent "Stranger murders" are now four timesof homicides are committed by strangers. Perpetrators of stranger murders haveas common as killings by family members. a better than 80 percent chance of not being punished. [Source: U.S. Department of Justice] Local police, prosecutors, and inner-city preachers know that the kids doing the violent crimes are more impulsively violent and remorseless than ever. For instance, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham who sits on the Council on Crime in America speaks of the frightening reality of elementary school kids who pack guns instead of lunches. Likewise, Dan Coburn, a former Superior Court Justice and Public Defender in New Jersey recently wrote, "This new wrote horde from hell kills, maims, and terrorizes merely to become known, or for no reason at all. These teens have no fear of dying and no concept of living." Even maximum-security prisoners agree. When asked by DiIulio what was triggering the explosion of violence among today's young street criminals, a group of long- and life-term New Jersey prisoners did not voice the conventional explanations such as economic poverty or joblessness. Instead, these hardened men cited the absence of people - family, adults, teachers, preachers, coaches- who would care enough about young males to nurture and discipline them. In the vacuum, drug dealers and "gansta rappers" serve as role models. "I was a bad-ass street gladiator," one convicted murderer said, "but these kids are stone-cold predators." (Bennett et al, 1996, p. 40) Even more shocking than the sheer volume of violent juvenile crime is the brutality of the crime committed for trivial motives: a pair of sneakers, a jacket, a real or imagined insult, a A 59-yeamomentary cheap thrill. Here are some examples: r-old man out on a morning stroll in Lake Tahoe was fatally shot four times by teenagers "looking for someone to scare." The police sa...
