Double Jeopardy: The Modern Dilemma for Juvenile Justice

Recent media reports focusing on specific, high-profile incidents of adolescent crime would have American society believe that juvenile violence rates have reached epidemic proportions. Magazine and newspaper editors brand today's teenagers "the most damaged and disturbed generation the country has ever produced"' and perpetuate the myth of the adolescent "superpredator. 2 Much of this media hype has centered its sensationalism around the violence occurring on school grounds. Particularly in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, the public responded to its media-generated fear by demanding a "get-tough" policy for violence in schools. Though "zero tolerance" had been present before such events, politicians and school administrators found themselves increasingly familiarized with the term in the late 1990s. In acknowledgment of the intensifying public pressure, school administrators began expanding the federal mandates surrounding