The (Imaginary) Plague

Figures from such major states as California and New York show the murder increase occurred only among impoverished urban youth, nearly all black, Latino and Asian. But the crime lobby really aims to scare suburban voters, and downtown gangstas (even when TV-enhanced) are too remote. Enter the new suburban, white-teen "stone killer," knifing his peers and gunning down schoolmates. Had he gone the next mile, Chambliss could have pointed out that today's murderous suburban cherub is about as new as Manson's creepy-crawlies or New York's 1954 hobo torchers (corrupted, experts said, by "horror comics").

In fact, the high school gun boy is only the junior version of a larger and more dangerous class of murderers: middle- and upper-class men (nearly all white) for whom life's routine disappointments provoke lethal error-code readings executed with massive firepower. Instead of revealing the reassuring big picture—that California's white-teen murder rate has dropped steadily for 25 years (in so-scary 1998, just 34 of California's 2,100 murder arrestees were white adolescents)—the crime lobby's scholars have fanned a panic orgy.

In the end, a hoax's success depends on how acutely the impresario perceives what folks want to believe. And Americans seem to crave being told that the immoral predations of an inherently lawless, sexually dissolute, naturally savage class are wrecking the republic. And they're right in the premise, even if they're wrong in the conclusion: as Chambliss points out, corrupt politicians and corporate criminals rip off $200 billion per year—50 times more than street criminals.

Power, Politics, & Crime by William J. Chambliss; Westview Press. 173 pages. $25 hardcover.

Mike Males finally graduated from UC Irvine. His latest low-selling book is Smoked: Why Joe Camel Is Still Smiling (Common Courage Press, 1999).