ve that juvenile delinquents are responsible for their actions to the same degree as adult offenders. However, this logic flies in the face of what we know to be factual about the risk factors for juvenile delinquency. There is not one risk factor that is identified for juvenile delinquency that can logically be blamed on the juveniles themselves, except for school failure, but, this to some measure, must also be blamed on educators and parents. In recent testimony before the Youth Violence Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Counselor to the Attorney General for Youth Violence, Kent Markus, stated:
If I could only do one thing here today, I would lay to rest the myth that after all these years and all this money, we still have no idea what works to reduce juvenile crime. This is simply not true. We do know, from proven research, what the risk factors are for delinquency. Among those that are particularly significant are: a lack of positive role models; drug availability and favorable attitudes toward drug use, firearms, and crime; unavailability of positive, structures, after-school activities; school failure, including truancy and dropping out; dysfunctional families; poor parenti
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