Since 1993, the number of violent crimes committed by children in the United States has decreased. While this news is encouraging, violent children continue to pose a threat to American society. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, for instance, police arrested 103,000 people under the age of eighteen for violent crimes in 1999. Of these arrests, fourteen hundred were for murder, and over sixty-nine thousand were for aggravated assault.

Statistics like these keep the issue of youth violence fresh in the minds of the American public, especially when considered in combination with news stories about school shootings, such as the one that occurred in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999. In this incident, eighteen-year-olds Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set bombs and opened fire on peers and teachers at Columbine High School, killing thirteen and then taking their own lives.

The Columbine shooting is just one incident in a string of school...