There are 500,000 hard-core teen-aged criminals at large in America. Fortunately, criminologists know how to identify them, and what to do about them.
"Most serious crime is committed by a violent minority of predatory recidivists," reports Reader's Digest contributing editor Eugene Methvin. Writing in the current issue of the Heritage Foundation journal Policy Review, Methvin cites studies showing that half of all crime, two-thirds of all violent crime, and all of the murders in a given community are likely to be committed by less than seven percent of the population. "A minority of this minority is extraordinarily violent, persistent, or both," he continues. "These Super Predators distinguish themselves by their arrest records, by the early age at which they first tangle with the law, and by the seriousness of their early offenses."
Those distinguishing features enable a community to target this dangerous underclass. "Most of these persistent predators are criminal psychopaths," observes Methvin, "and we now have a scientifically valid instrument to identify them with reasonable accuracy." The Psychopathy Check List pinpoints 20 "personality traits and behaviors characteristic of this personality disorder." Glibness, manipulativeness, lying, sexual promiscuity, inordinate self-esteem, impulsiveness, impatience, and remorselessness are telltale signs. Methvin maintains that the Psychopathy Check List "can be a powerful tool for prison administrators, parole boards, judges, and others who must cope with this extraordinarily destructive population. High scorers," he insists, "are poor risks for probation or parole and good candidates for maximum sentences in higher security institutions."
By trying to rehabilitate rather than punish, the juvenile justice system engages in "costly coddling of serious and persistent offenders," observes Methvin. He points out that "a troublesome youngster typically has 10 or 12 contacts with the criminal-justice system and many more undiscovered offenses before he ever receives any formal 'adjudication,' or finding of guilt, from a judge. He quickly concludes that he will never face any serious consequences for his delinquency."
Methvin insists that "punishment is very effective in deterring crime." That assumes, of course, that penalties are applied swiftly and consistently, which is not the case here in the United States. He also argues that "prisons work, and they are a relative bargain." Methvin points out that "two-thirds to three-fourths of criminals sent to prison for the first time never return." Hardened criminals do come back again and again, but the cost to society of the crimes they commit while at large far exceeds the cost of their continued incarceration. "The 10 states that increased their prison populations the most in relation to serious crimes between 1980 and 1992," Methvin reports, "cut their crime rates by an average of 19 percent."
Eugene Methvin cites the approach of New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton as a shining example of what works. Bratton's policy of "relentless pursuit" of Super Predators has proven amazingly successful. "From 1994 to 1996," Methvin reports, "New York City's murders declined by 49 percent, robberies 43 percent, burglaries 39 percent, and grand larcenies 32 percent." That's a model that other cities could copy.
