the motivation to recriminalize delinquency was not merely a consequence of the ideological bent of several conservative critics of juvenile justice. U.S. Supreme Court judges and distinguished scholars on the President's Crime Commission contributed their share of criticism. By the mid-1970s, public and official complaints about juvenile justice once more threatened the system's political and moral legitimacy. In New York, the stage was set for recriminalization in the shape of its JO law.

The immediate sources of crisis and the legal response at this point will be examined more closely; they are directly related to the manner in which New York was able to create and implement its unique form of recriminalization. I will examine the political and organizational steps leading to the JO law in the way of media stories, an earlier reform, legislative committee reports, and the debates that preceded the JO law.

By media stories I do not mean that they were unrelated to reality. Rather, they presented a version of reality that fit a recurring popular media theme of violent juvenile crime and juvenile justice. They stressed that a segment of delinquents was more violent and more chronic than the delinquents of earlier generations. At the same time, they argued that the juvenile justice system failed to keep up with the more violent behavior of this new generation of violent delinquents. In highlighting the problem of juvenile crime and justice, media stories set the stage for commission reports recommending legal reform.