ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a number of interrelated objectives and goals. It provides a road map to those that follow by providing a broad perspective of what people know about adolescents at risk; what people don't know about them; how people can best fill the lacunae in our knowledge; the extent to which the American people are using the knowledge they have to reduce the ravages of adolescents' malfunctioning; and finally to pinpoint the many different groups that should redouble their efforts to reduce and eliminate the great individual and societal losses stemming from the dysfunctional behavior of adolescents. It provides the building blocks for a better understanding of the processes leading to aberrant adolescent behavior and they point to directions for improved interventions.
