Medicine: The Amazing Capacity

From pulpit and bench, from social workers and editorial writers, the U.S. regularly hears dire warnings about the growth of juvenile delinquency and the crisis this implies for urban civilization. Nonsense, says Dr. Lauretta Bender, senior psychiatrist at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital; the proportion of juvenile crime to urban population is no greater now than it was at the turn of the century. The interesting psychological question, she told a law-school forum at New York University last week, is: "Why are so many of our children not delinquent?" "Children have an amazing capacity to...

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