The death rate by violence for African-American males living in these areas is about 10 times the national average. Urban crime is increasingly concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods. Crime rates in Milwaukee's most impoverished neighborhoods, for example, are more than 20 times higher than crime rates in other parts of the city. Nationally, such neighborhoods have a disproportionate share of drug abuse, welfare dependency, illegitimacy and breakdown of the social fabric. Conditions that foster crime are spreading to poor white communities, too.
Children become radically present-oriented, unable to defer immediate gratifications.
There is evidence to suggest that all young Americans, not just poor inner-city youth, are increasingly disposed to these character defects. More and more crime involves chronic violent offenders under 18 years of age. Males under age 18 are committing unprecedented numbers of violent and other serious crimes. Juvenile arrests for violent crime increased 50 percent from 1987 to 1991, twice the increase for persons 18 years of age or older. The increase in juvenile crime has been concentrated largely among young African-American males.