Adult crime levels rival youth levels in most categories. But they have never failed to imitate them. This basic truth has all but disappeared as the public increasingly treats teenagers as a robot-like population under sway of an exploitative media. White House officials lecture film, music, Internet, fashion, and pop-culture moguls and accuse them of programming kids to smoke, drink, shoot up, have sex, and kill. So do conservatives, led by William Bennett and Dan Quayle.
Professional organizations are also into media-bashing.
In its famous report on youth risks, the Carnegie Corporation devoted a full chapter to media influences. Progressives are no exception. None of these varied interests note that during the eighteen years between a child's birth and graduation from high school, there will be fifteen million cases of real violence in American homes grave enough to require hospital emergency treatment. These assaults will cause ten million serious injuries and 40,000 deaths to children. In October 1996, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 565,000 serious injuries that abusive parents inflicted on children and youths in 1993.