"Three quarters of American children have been exposed to neighborhood violence in their lifetimes. Most of the existing research has concluded that exposure to violence leads to restricted emotional development, aggressive behavior and poor school outcomes. However, this literature fails to...

The epidemic of youth violence in the United States peaked in 1993 and has been followed by a rapid, sustained drop. In parallel with our earlier treatment (Cook and Laub 1998), we assess two types of explanation for this drop -- those that focus on 'cohort' effects (including the effects of...