The Public Interest articles from June 1999

The Public Interest archives from June 1999

Boys will be boys.(psychology)
June 22, 1999... Are boys in trouble today? Their situation is desperate, according to a coalition of clinical and academic psychologists. The alarming news has been trumpeted in scholarly journals as well as in several best-selling books, most notably William...

Courting disorder in the schools.(lawsuits against schools)
June 22, 1999... When twelve students and a teacher were shot dead in the Columbine High School massacre, public alarm (abetted by the media) was inevitable. In a Newsweek poll immediately following the killing, 63 percent of Americans said that it was "very or...

Blood and altruism.(Richard M. Titmuss' criticism on the commercialization of blood)
June 22, 1999... To what extent can we - and to what extent should we - rely on altruism to provide for the needy? That is the overarching question of a provocative book published in 1970 by British social scientist Richard M. Titmuss. Recently restored to...

Boston cops and black churches.(New Approaches to Fighting Crime)
June 22, 1999... In recent years, homicide rates in a number of large American cities have plummeted. Between 1990 and 1996, New York's rate dropped 58.7 percent, Houston's 54 percent, Los Angeles' 27.9 percent, Philadelphia's 17.7 percent, and Washington,...

Prevention through community prosecution.(New Approaches to Fighting Crime)
June 22, 1999... The single greatest influence on postwar American criminal justice policy was President Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, whose main report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), was hailed by...

How federal prosecutors can reduce crime.(New Approaches to Fighting Crime, part 3)
June 22, 1999... The striking drop in crime over the last few years, particularly in New York City, but also notable in some other cities, undoubtedly has many causes. The changes in policing methods have attracted the most attention. Police departments - and...

The costly compassion of the ADA.(Americans with Disabilities Act)
June 22, 1999... There is no denying the good intentions and laudable compassion behind the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This sweeping piece of legislation was passed in 1990, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both houses of...

Assessing welfare reform: work pays.
June 22, 1999... Welfare reform is off to a good start. Between 1994 and 1998, welfare rolls declined 37 percent. Fewer people are staying on welfare, and fewer are applying for benefits. Several state evaluations of welfare reform show that many welfare...

Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment.
June 22, 1999... Adam Smith has long suffered from having become an icon of laissez-faire capitalism, revered by the Right and despised by the Left. As little as a generation ago, it was hard to find intellectuals in the West who took him seriously. His books...

Principles for a Free Society.
June 22, 1999... Richard A. Epstein is one of the country's most important libertarian theorists. The University of Chicago law professor first gained prominence in 1985 with Takings, which urged that the eminent-domain clause of the Constitution be transported...

Economics: The Culture of a Controversial Science.
June 22, 1999... One of life's little puzzles is the price of popcorn in movie theaters. It costs almost as much to buy a bucket of popcorn as it does to see the movie itself. Movies cost tens of millions of dollars to produce. Popcorn costs almost nothing to...