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The terrifying plunge in youth crime.<\/a> \u00a0By Mike Males | February 2023\u00a0<\/strong>Crime, gun killings, and arrest rates<\/a> by youths have fallen faster in California than in any other state over\u00a0the last three to five decades, a trend that apparently horrifies authorities and the news media across\u00a0the political spectrum.<\/p>\n LA\u2019s Diverse Teens Have Abolished the Stereotypical, Brainless \u201cTeenager\u00a0 <\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | October 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n Today, teens ages 13-19, 8% of the population, comprise just 4% of L.A.\u2019s violent deaths and suicides and 2% of lethal drug and binge-drinking overdoses.<\/p>\n Why Do Gun-Control Lobbies Sabotage Themselves? \u00a0<\/a>By\u00a0<\/strong>Mike Males | October 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n Schools and urban young people, relentlessly demonized for gun violence, actually represent America\u2019s best hopes<\/p>\n The Grotesque Lies That Keep America’s Phony “Gun Debate” Going \u00a0<\/strong><\/a>By Mike Males | October 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n America\u2019s children die by guns far more than kids in other Western countries not because of school shootings or loose guns, but because American grownups of mature age are shooting them<\/p>\n Opinion: Gun debate should shift toward adult shooters, who outnumber schoolkids with deadly weapons<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | December 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n American schools are just about the safest places in gun-plagued American society from shootings \u2013 safer than Denmark, in fact. Household adult shooters pose far more danger to kids than do peers at school. Those crucial, easily-provable realities are so horrifying to gun debaters none dare to admit them.<\/p>\n California juvenile reforms should proceed, despite probation officer lobbying efforts \u00a0<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | October 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n Juvenile probation officers are lobbying to save their budgets, claiming thoroughly undeserved credit for the 82% decline in crime by youth.<\/p>\n Opinion: High Court\u2019s Recent Juvenile Lifer Ruling is Barbaric <\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | May 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n Both sides in the Court\u2019s decision upholding a life sentence for a severely abused teenager were poisoned by primitive prejudices against adolescents that wrecked any semblance of individualized justice.<\/p>\n A Proposal to Transform California\u2019s Juvenile Justice System, Confront Climate Change<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males and Selena Teji | September 16, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n California can shift to a 21st-century model of small-scale, low-density facilities oriented toward education, job training and conservation employment.<\/p>\n Opinion: Blaming Young People For COVID-19 Infections, Crime Is Unfair Stereotype<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males | November 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n Cut out the smug blame game. Young people, like people of color, dominate occupations whose workers are more exposed to infection<\/a> and are compelled by economic circumstances to return to work \u2013 realities that account for recent infections.<\/p>\n Whatever Happened to the Teenage Shoplifter (and Vandal, Arsonist, Burglar, Joyrider)?<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | July 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n Vandalism, shoplifting, burglary, joyriding, arson, and petty theft once defined the \u201cdumb kid\u201d. Now, after the under-20 share of property crime arrests plummeted from 43% in 1975 to 8% today \u2013 yes, you read that right \u2013 the \u201cdumb teenager\u201d seems to have vanished.<\/p>\n Plunging Youth Crime Is Opportunity for California<\/a><\/strong> By Mike Males | April 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n The massive, 82% plummet in youth arrests<\/a> over the last quarter-century has devastated California\u2019s youth correctional system, the Division of Juvenile Justice<\/a> (DJJ) and brought stunning new opportunities for genuine reform.<\/p>\n Who Knows Why California Crime by Youth Is Plummeting?<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males | October 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n California\u2019s arrests of youths plunged another 17% in 2018 to the lowest levels ever recorded \u2013 yet, an arrested youth\u2019s odds of being formally sentenced by a juvenile or adult court and of being incarcerated rose rapidly. Why?<\/p>\n California, NY\u2019s Amazing Low-crime Trends Need to Be Studied<\/a><\/strong> By Mike Males | October 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Teenagers in the nation\u2019s two largest metropolises, New York City and Los Angeles, once suffered gun killing rates<\/a> triple the national average. After an 88% drop, teen gun death levels in those cities now are well below the national average. Why do we refuse to learn from this?<\/p>\n As California Youth Crime Plummets, Need for Innovative Re-engagement Strategies Rises<\/a><\/strong> By Mike Males | May 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The huge decline in crime by youths \u2013 no thanks to a legal system that denies youths full adult rights while subjecting youths to worse-than-adult punishments \u2013 demands systemic transformation.<\/p>\n Youth Much Less Likely to Shoot or Be Shot Now, No Thanks to Adults<\/a><\/strong> By Mike Males | April 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n In 25 years, teenage shooting deaths fell 81% in El Paso, 83% in Dallas\/Fort Worth, 87% in Los Angeles, 89% in San Diego, and 93% in New York City \u2013 areas with very different gun laws \u2013 and no one cares why<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Are minorities and young people better off after marijuana laws are reformed?<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | March 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n A new preliminary report by YouthFacts, using recently released 2014 data, finds arrests for marijuana offenses of all types drop substantially for all ages and races after states reform marijuana laws \u2014 but substantial disparities in marijuana arrest rates by race remain the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After the Doors Were Locked: A History of Youth Corrections in California and the Origins of Twenty-First Century Reform<\/a> <\/strong>By Mike Males | November 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n Weaving together a compelling and incisive story about the nation\u2019s largest youth corrections system, Dan Macallair lays bare the daily reality of institutional life \u2014 including 150 years of scandal, public outrage, and failed reforms.<\/p>\n Are Teenage Crime Proneness and Adolescent Risk Taking Obsolete Myths? <\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | February 20, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n The two-thirds of 14-19 year-olds who live in areas where youths\u2019 poverty rates top 15% account for a staggering 86% of teens\u2019 arrests. The 19% of teenagers who reside in areas where teen poverty rates average under 10% (the typical middle-aged poverty level) account for just 7% of teens\u2019 arrests. Hmmm.<\/p>\n Lead exposure and poverty: Have we gotten \u201cyouth violence\u201d all wrong?<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males | December 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n We’ve found in repeated studies that teenagers and young adults are no more prone to risk-taking and crime <\/a>than older adults once the fact 15-24 year-olds are 2-3 times more likely to suffer the economic and environmental harms associated with poverty than middle-agers is taken into account. Now, a researcher finds lead in the blood\u2014which at high levels are associated with many aspects of criminal behavior\u2014by generation track crime rates in a strikingly reliable fashion.<\/p>\n Why Don\u2019t Youth Curfews Work? <\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | October 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n The best evidence, and basic human rights considerations, shows we need more youth on the streets, not dictatorial banishments.<\/p>\n The Gun Debate, Round 2: Let\u2019s Learn From Young People, Not Demonize Them<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males | May 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n Long-held beliefs that young age is a causal factor in crime and risky behavior are a prejudice that ignores young people\u2019s high poverty rates, like discredited past efforts to associate violence and race.<\/p>\n Police Department’s vitriol against young people is more reason for federal takeover. \u00a0<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | January 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n The cops brand a 16 year-old murder victim as “at risk” and blame her for being shot by a 36 year-old man simply because she was in public. The police chief trashes the city’s young people en masse as greedy and dangerous even though youth perpetrate only a small fraction of crime. Pervasive, continuing police bigotries underlies the reason for the recent federal takeover of the troubled OPD.<\/p>\n Who’s really murdering our children\u2014and why won’t we talk about it?<\/a> <\/strong>By Mike Males | December 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n A large majority of murdered American children under age 10 died not from shootings by deranged gunmen, gangbangers, bullies or lurking internet predators, but in violence at home by their parents. A child or teenager under age 18 is 40 times more likely to be murdered at home than at school by anyone. Realities to think about as political interests in the wake of Sandy Hook make schools sound like dens of mass slaughter.<\/p>\n American gun debate stifled by myth, dogma, and resistance to crucial information.<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0By\u00a0Mike Males | December 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n During Barack Obama’s presidency, 3,000 American children and teenagers have been murdered at home in domestic violence, nearly all by parents and caretakers. That’s a Sandy Hook-sized toll every 10 days. Have the president and other leaders faced this difficult reality? Hardly. The Obama White House has largely ignored child abuse and has flatly blamed gun violence on “children.” Without a major change of heart in the White House, the legacy of Sandy Hook will be just another study in scapegoating.<\/p>\n Plunge in black-youth crime threatens politics of scapegoating.<\/a> <\/strong>By Mike Males | December 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest, 2011, FBI Crime in America report shows rates of all types of crime by African American youth have fallen to their lowest levels since statistics by race were first reported (in incomplete fashion) in 1964. Yet President Obama, mayors, media commentators, and right-wing lobbies continue to push their agendas by demonizing today’s black youth as the epicenter of violence\u2014a 2012 bigotry as insidious as Jim Crow.<\/p>\n The \u201cZimmerman Dilemma,\u201d How afraid should we be of young black men?<\/a> <\/strong>By Mike Males | April 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n Self-appointed suburban vigilante George Zimmerman pursues and guns down unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin; his later comments showed he feared Martin simply because the teenager was young and African American. How much responsibility does the national commentariat, from President Obama to black leaders to right-wing fear-mongers, bear for misrepresenting today’s young black men as fearsomely violent\u2026 exactly the way Zimmerman misperceived Trayvon Martin?<\/p>\n \u201cStand your ground\u201d does not apply to black teenagers. \u00a0<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | April 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n Typically, after a highly publicized shooting, the National Rifle Association & friends declare that if the “good guy” victim(s) of a “bad guy” gunman had just been armed, they’d still be alive. Strangely, the NRA failed to raise the argument that if African American teenager Trayvon Martin had a Glock 19 pistol instead of Skittles, Martin could have repelled his attacker. In fact, the entire discussion has been whether vigilante George Zimmerman had the right under Florida law to “stand his ground” against Martin after he’d pursued and picked a fight with Martin\u2014not about Martin’s rights under that same law.<\/p>\n Banning youths from streets may make us less safe<\/a> <\/strong>By Mike Males | August 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n Why curfews fail. Bloomberg News published our op-ed on why cities’ responses to newly manufactured panics over “flash mobs” and ongoing fears of “youth on the streets” resurrected a self-defeating curfew stampede that wastes police time removing law-abiding youth from the streets.<\/p>\n Not “youth violence” again\u2026 \u00a0<\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males | April 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n President Obama launches his 2012 reelection campaign with a triple attack against young people, a legacy of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel\u2019s cowardly Clinton-era politics<\/a> of generational fearmongering. The White House\u2019s calculated efforts to win \u201cvalues\u201d voters\u2019 support by cynically trashing America\u2019s young as bullies, rapists, and violent criminals\u2014and its conspicuous silence on genuine but impolitic issues like youth poverty and child abuse\u2014demonstrate the growing dishonesty of an administration that promised change and hope to win young people\u2019s enthusiasm, then delivered the same old bigoted anti-youth clich\u00e9s and exploitation.<\/p>\n California: Record-high youth numbers, record-high diversity, record-low youth crime<\/a>: <\/strong>By Mike Males | July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n Today’s panic and hostility toward American youth is so intense that California’s stunningly hopeful developments\u2014record lows in crime by youths as its diverse, under-18 population (68% are now nonwhite) soars to record highs\u2014is resolutely ignored by authorities and media. Just-released 2009 state statistics shows both serious and minor youth crime rates are at their lowest levels since records were first compiled in 1954. Crime “experts” said more, and more diverse, youth bring more crime… and, as is very often the case, the experts are wrong again.<\/p>\n The FBI reports more than 6,000 American children and teenagers under age 18 were murdered by adults\u2014a large majority by guns.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In the last decade, the FBI reports more than 6,000 American children and teenagers under age 18 were murdered by adults\u2014a large majority by guns. By the gun-rights logic of the US Supreme Court<\/a>, legislators, and lobbies that gun ownership for self protection is a “basic right,” laws banning guns for those under age 18 represent a threat to young people’s right to defend themselves from gun-wielding grownups and should be repealed or struck down. Let our kids shoot back!<\/a><\/p>\n Is there an “epidemic” of teens terrorizing the homeless? <\/a><\/strong>By Mike Males |September 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n The news media and homeless organizations are once again whipping up the myth from a small number of isolated cases that rising hordes of “vile” and “vicious” teenagers are wantonly beating and killing homeless people. In fact, there’s no “epidemic” (any more than news stories of homeless people attacking teens prove some vicious, new homeless fad). The efforts by advocates of one group subjected to unwarranted prejudice and fear (the homeless) to vilify another one (young people) is sad and disturbing.<\/p>\n Youth crime, 2006\u2014get ready for distortions<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males | July 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, it’s feeding time again! The FBI’s just-released 2006 crime figures are already being pounced on by police, reporters, and their always-wrong “experts” like James Alan Fox to grab bucks and ratings. Here’s a guide to the anti-youth distortions you’ll be seeing and the truth about the latest changes in youth crime\u2014good and bad. Also, the girl-crime apocalypse continues to be a myth, as girls’ crime<\/a>, especially murder, falls sharply.<\/p>\n The 40-Age Crime Wave You’ve Never Heard of…<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n By Mike Males | April 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n Quick quiz: what age group shows the biggest rise in violence, serious crime, and drug offenses? It’s not youth or young adults\u2026the massive crime epidemic the news media, the cops, interest groups, and “experts” endlessly scapegoating youth refuse to face.<\/p>\n Are schools and campuses \u201cfull of angry kids\u201d waiting to commit mass shootings?<\/strong><\/a> By Mike Males<\/strong><\/p>\n Are schools “full of angry kids” waiting to commit mass shootings? In fact, in a nation that leads all other Western nations in gun murders by far, our high school and college campuses are safer than Denmark\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n