Crime is the expression of a human soul which is still fighting
against other's domination while failure, as in school, represents
a soul already defeated.

A. S. Neill

In the famous draft riots in New York City during the American Civil
War, the New York Times admitted that the actual rioting had little to do
with the draft. "It was actually a craving for plunder, a barbarous spite
against a different race" ( Tunley 1962, 99). It was reported that three
fourths of the participants were in their teens. The police were unable to
cope with the gangs, which were so numerous that it took five minutes for
all of them to pass one spot in the stampede.

About two years ago, in April 1992, I attended a special workshop
sponsored by A Chance for Youth, a federally contracted outreach
program to help high-risk youth in Oklahoma City learn survival skills.
At that workshop, Dr. Belinda Biscoe, a nationally known psychologist,
explained to staff members and volunteers how peer group pressures
compel teenagers to commit crimes against the public, to inflict damage
on themselves with drug addiction, and to strike out at adults of other
races or even their own peer groups in order to spill out the anger of their
shame.

As many concerned parents and grandparents ponder how to raise
children in the 1990s, they realize that one half of our teenage children
are at risk at more than the normal level. Even when there are two
functioning parents, there remain potential difficulties because of low
self-esteem, school phobia, and experimentation with drugs and alcohol.

The book, How to Find Help for a Troubled Kid ( Austin and Reaves
1990, 3), presents dynamite statistics, such as that one and a half million
American teenagers are arrested every year for offenses ranging from
murder to truancy; nearly a million and a half run away from home;

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