ABSTRACT
Americans are fascinated with and frightened by children and adolescents who commit serious crimes. Television news, newsmagazines, and newspapers are dominated for weeks at a time with minute detail of youth homicides and elaborate speculation concerning the motivations of those involved. Indeed, the news stories for 1998 and 1999 most closely followed by the American public focused on adolescents who killed classmates. The news on the 1999 Littleton, Colorado, school shootings were followed closely by 68% of Americans, whereas only 31% reported following the impeachment trial of the President of the United States with the same level of interest (The Pew Research Center, 2000a). The media-supported image of a young conscience-less generation leads to a majority of the American adult population judging itself to be pessimistic about the future moral standards in the country.
