Vol. 9 No. 10 (October 1999) pp. 455-457.
AMERICAN YOUTH VIOLENCE by Franklin E. Zimring. Oxford University Press, 1998. 209 pp. $29.95 Cloth.
Reviewed by James F. Quinn, Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions and Department of Criminal
Justice, University of North Texas.
This book is a scholarly critique of dire predictions of an imminent "blood bath" of teen violence made
by a few academicians and many politicians. Part one scrutinizes data on the rate and nature of violence by modern
American juveniles and examines the veracity of predictions about the future nature and rate of juvenile violence.
Part two examines the policies that have resulted from popular beliefs about youth violence in this decade. The
last two chapters look at the future of the juvenile court and youth policy.
Zimring begins by comparing public responses to the "crime wave" of the 1970s with current perceptions
of juvenile violence. Three themes recur across the two eras: (1) allegations that juvenile offenders are becoming
much more heinous, (2) a tendency to blame the problem on a lenient court system, and (3) legislative remedies
that encourage the transfer of teens into the adult system. The opening chapter outlines the academic, political
and popular hand wringing over "the next generation." This has bred a fear of a generation of "superpredators,"
a fear that seems designed to intimidate the public into supporting a punitive approach to juvenile justice. Analyses
of juvenile crime by Bennett, Fox, Wilson, Petersilia and Dilulio project a deterministic certainty for the arrival
of superpredators. Legislation mandating the transfer of juveniles to adult courts thus has redefined affected
youths as stereotypical predators and legal adults so that the cultural tendency to protect adolescents remains
suspended. Zimring, however, notes that legal accountability presumes free will, which suggests fallacious logic
in the superpredator model.
Chapter Two reviews the basic empirical patterns in violent teen crimes. Zimring notes that teens tend to act in
groups and have a high incidence of crime but that their acts result in a rather low overall death rate. The patterns
of arrest that follow age, gender and are no surprise but the comparison of lethal acts by teens with those of
young adults is valuable, especially with regard to racial distinctions and their underlying causes. He asserts
that the legal categories of robbery and aggravated assault describe acts that range along large continua of dangerousness
and criminal commitment. Zimring also notes that official rates of violence do not
reflect the heterogeneous backgrounds of teen offenders and victims that are found in victimization and self-report
studies.
These two chapters are the foundation upon which Zimring's analysis of trends in juvenile violence since 1980 stands.
He reiterates the same conclusion he reached with Hawkin's CRIME IS NOT THE PROBLEM (1997): firearms are at the
root of America's so-called "violence epidemic." It is the availability of guns, not the intent or character
of the perpetrators,
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that has changed the pattern of youth violence in the last twenty years. He also provides a strong, if not conclusive,
case for the idea that police charging norms have resulted in an increase in the number of youth accused of aggravated
assault in the last two decades. More important, his data show that there is no clear trend in youth violence
over this period. Rates change rapidly and, if cycles can be identified at all, their duration is very brief.
This is a pivotal point because academic and
political fear-mongers use these rates as the foundation of predictions of the coming "blood bath" of
teen homicide.
Part one concludes with a critical examination of what can be safely predicted about youth crime trends through
the year 2010. Census data is first used to blunt assertions based on supposed bulges in the population pyramid.
Although minority youths will increase as a percentage of the teen population, the criminogenic implications of
this trend will be offset by the predominance of Hispanics, migration from the inner cities and unknown changes
in family structure. At minimum, this chapter seriously undermines the fear of a coming wave of juvenile superpredators
that justifies making criminal justice even more punitive. At most, it provides
a cogent case for dismissing crime as a major social concern in the foreseeable future.
Part two weaves between these data and the concepts and policies hat lie behind the juvenile court and legislative
attempts to hijack judicial discretion. It opens with a review of the basic principles of juvenile court procedures
and jurisdiction. This discussion emphasizes the linkage of mature criminal intent and commitment to the appropriateness
and degree of punishment assigned, and scrutinizes the application of diminished capacity to youthful perpetrators
of serious violence. The likelihood of maturing out of crime or accepting reformative influences, and differences
in the ability to obey laws and resist peer influences are also themes in
this argument for reduced culpability in young offenders.
The next chapter takes aim at our failure to adequately control juvenile access to firearms. Precipitous increases
in gun-related deaths over the last nine years preface arguments focused on the contradictions between age restrictions
on dangerous behaviors and the equal culpability of juveniles and adults in gun-crimes. Some will be disturbed
by use of the term "status offense" to describe gun crimes by delinquents but Zimring's argument is legally
sound and factually coherent as he compares the restrictions placed on juveniles and felons.
Attention turns to the practice of transferring juvenile offenders to adult courts and the parallel use of blended
jurisdiction or determinant sentencing for youths. The imposition of categorical imperatives on local judges is
contrasted with the apparent satisfaction of the justice system functionaries with the traditional norms of the
juvenile court. The frenzied rush to embrace punitive justice as a panacea for our social ills is not as fearful
in its outcome as we might expect, however. Courtroom
work groups that seek to maintain their procedural routines while protecting the nature of the institutions they
represent easily neutralize many legislative changes.
Part two concludes with a discussion of the system's response to juvenile killers. Its focus is on the "magical"
belief that changing the type of court that reacts to teen
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murderers will have a preventive impact on these impulsive, peer dominated and often highly immature offenders.
Zimring rightfully insists that there is no "typical" teen murder case but devotes much attention to
the details of Malcolm Shabazz's arson-murder of his grandmother and the robbery-murder of two tourists in the
Florida panhandle by a group of black youths. He is concerned with the role of the offender's judgment, experience,
and ability to anticipate and handle various common precipitators of crime in determining criminal culpability.
Most youths are rightly found to be less culpable than adults because they are deficient in these traits. Zimring
repeatedly refers to a lack of data on the psychological attributes of juvenile killers. Although it could bolster
his contentions about the diminished capacity of teenagers, he ignores what is tentatively known of serious delinquents.
The final section of the book looks at the implications of all these illogical, legal-political trends and the
academically supported stereotypes that feed them, on juvenile courts and youth policies. It is by now clear that
changes in judicial treatment of youths are driven by popular beliefs about justice and that these are currently
dictated by the retributive orientation of neo-conservative politics. Instead of getting special treatment, citizens
can be increasingly assured that the courts
will harshly treat juveniles. The factors that have traditionally been used to justify case specific decisions
in juvenile felony cases - malleability, cooperativeness, typicality for developmental phase, seriousness of act
and dangerousness of the perpetrator - have changed little since the founding of the juvenile court a hundred years
ago. The data show that most youths charged with violent crimes pose little long-term danger to society. However,
policy is being written largely as a
response to the acts of a few exceptionably dangerous recidivists, almost all of who were violent juveniles. Youth
policies focus entirely on erroneous claims of future heinousness and thus ignore all that is good about the coming
generation while providing a foundation for senseless policies and frivolous expenditures. Zimring's supreme failure
in this book is the dearth of attention he gives to how policies based on academic and political fear mongering
are very likely to create a crime wave as educational and health budgets are devoured by prison construction campaigns.
Scientific criminology and democratic jurisprudence should already be operating on the basis of the ideas and data
put forth so meticulously in this work. It is an important refutation of right wing academics and politicians.
Its contents deserve to be presented in every course offered on juvenile delinquency and justice policy in the
nation. Zimring is as eloquent and cogent a legal scholar as he is a skilled empiricist. This book is exactly
the kind of product that we have come to expect from him over the years. However, the language and style of scholarship
are little competition for the drama of modern media and the over generalizations of
politicians. This is not a book that will fascinate either undergraduates or the general public. Its pace is
slow and its language sophisticated. The very fact that it will not rank as a bestseller may be indicative of the
reactionary pathology of postmodern America.
REFERENCE
Hawkins, Gordon. 1997. CRIME IS NOT THE PROBLEM. New York: Oxford
University Press.