IN A MONUMENTAL effort to protect the public from dangerous teens, the government and the police of the United States have arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned record numbers of juveniles, but the violence has continued. By the mid-1990s, all but the most battle-hungry police were willing to admit that harsh suppression of violent teens produced only local, temporary successes and that it was not working to quell urban violence over the long run. Law enforcement and the juvenile justice system were forced to look for other strategies for achieving long-term reductions in teen violence. Even though violent juvenile crime declined somewhat between 1995 and 1997, locking up juveniles after they have already hurt or killed someone has not achieved the major reductions in juvenile violence that are needed. Furthermore, tougher laws and courts so far have produced disappointing results in preventing juvenile violence. Instead...