Bill Clinton: “I want to get to the young people here. And let me tell you, it's okay if you disagree with us about this; we want to…”

“I want to get to the young people here. And let me tell you, it's okay if you disagree with us about this; we want to hear what you really think. But I want to ask the doctor one more question. Before I had this job, as I used to say, back when I had a life-- [laughter]--I was Governor of my State when I ran a big prison system and a big criminal justice system, obviously. And then I was attorney general, and before that I taught criminal law. So I've been following issues of crime and violence closely from that perspective for more than 20 years now. For most of my time, it was an article of faith that 75 percent of all the violent crimes in America were created by people between the ages of 17 and 26 and that there was almost a hormonal problem--if you could literally just get violent people and put them somewhere until they were 27, you could let them out and then they would not do that again--that there really almost seemed to be sea changes. Now we see an astonishing thing with the crime rate going down among people 18 and over and, I might add, drug use going down among people over 18, and violence going up among people under 18, as well as casual drug use. And I think there are plainly other reasons for increasing violent behavior among young people, including the lives that many of them have to live, virtually raising themselves on some of the meanest streets in America. But I gather from what you said that you really believe that the sort of cumulative, almost deadening impact of all this media-generated violence is at least partly the explanation for rising rates of violence among juveniles. [Dr. Phillips concurred, pointing out that the increase in juvenile crime was a multifactorial problem. The Vice President noted that the upcoming White House Conference on Youth Violence would address other factors involved, thanked the industry for taking the steps that they agreed to, and suggested that the children might have a different perspective.]”