Reference no: EM13834636

A couple of decades ago researchers predicted that society would soon be faced with a problem that became known as superpredators. It was believed that the prevalence of gangs and the overall increasing rate of violent crimes committed by juveniles would continue to the point that there would be a generation or cohort of juveniles that would be terrorizing society. The prediction was that juveniles of the 1980s and 1990s were out of control and there was no stopping them from committing violent crimes. Now use this link to access the article Juvenile Arrests 2010. https://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/242770.pdf

Pay particular attention to page 8. Notice that the researchers were correct for the years 1987-1994 in that crime did increase significantly (which in turn caused legislators and the public to demand stricter punishment for juveniles). But look what happened after 1994. The arrest rate for juveniles followed the same trend for crime that was occurring in society as a whole with the number of crimes decreasing significantly. The horror of superpredators never occurred. Now all we have to worry about is juveniles committing crimes so they can record it and put it on the You Tube.