Much of the public's perception of and reaction to violent crime is based in news reports which simply provide the facts without supplying rational guidance for considering how to respond to the facts. Consequently, public policy toward violent crime is influenced by uninformed, emotional public clamors for immediate, repressive action against violent offenders. The public debate about how to deal with violent crime and violent offenders has rarely dealt with the causes of violence and the failure of repressive methods by themselves to curb it. The problem is that public debate has not been so structured as to present policy and action options between doing nothing and trying to incapacitate and punish violent offenders by imprisoning them. All emotional issues require time to engage thoughtful persons in a careful review of all aspects of the problem and to define choices. Most critical problems are complicated and not likely to respond to short-term strategies. The incentive for embarking upon the long process of review and debate is the emergence of better choices for action and the probability that the action taken will have a constructive effect.