Each year the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan conducts the Monitoring the Future survey of students and young adults. Primarily, the survey asks questions about social behaviors, such as sexual activity, drug use, violence, and crime. In 2002, 75.5 percent of high school seniors said that they often or sometimes worried about crime and violence. Female students (83.1 percent) were more likely to worry than were male students (66.5 percent). Black students (80.8 percent) were more worried about crime and violence than white students (73.4 percent). (See Table 9.14.)

According to the same study, when asked how often they worried about certain major problems facing the nation, high school seniors in the class of 2002 said they worried about crime and violence the most (75.5 percent), followed by drug abuse (56.9 percent), hunger and poverty (49.7 percent), and economic problems (47 percent). From 1990 to 2002 crime and violence was the number one worry of high school seniors participating in the study.

In 2000 nearly two-thirds of respondents to a national Gallup Poll thought that juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17 who commit violent crimes should be tried as adults. Male respondents were more likely to feel that way than females. Sixty-eight percent of those interviewed who had "some college" education believed juveniles should be tried as adults, while only 55 percent of those with post-college graduate education felt that way.

In 2003 the Survey Research Program of the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University asked for opinions regarding whether those under the age of 18 should be eligible for the death penalty. Just over 52 percent believed they should be eligible, while 32.6 percent believed the death penalty should be only for those over the age of 18. Of those who believed the death penalty should be applied to those under the age of 18, 37.7 percent thought the youngest aged offenders should be 16 years old.