Late one summer evening in Atlanta, a 20-year-old man walked into a suburban superette and paused to examine the magazine rack. When the store's only other customer made her purchase and left, the youth strolled to the checkout counter, pulled a .357 revolver out of his jacket, pointed it at the clerk and ordered the frightened boy to lie down on the floor. He grabbed the $87 that was in the cash register and ran for the door, where he collided with an elderly woman trying to enter. At the sight of his weapon she fainted to the sidewalk. Her next week would be spent in Grady Hospital recovering from what was called a slight heart attack. The robber reached his car parked beside the curb, but even before he could get it started the police had been flagged down by an onlooker and were in the parking lot. Their quarry surrendered meekly; he was handcuffed and carried downtown. In a darkened apartment, the lights turned off for nonpayment, his wife and child were left without support.

It was almost a routine event. An armed robbery occurs every few hours in Atlanta. The damage was relatively slight in this case: a woman temporarily hospitalized, a trembling store clerk vowing that he will quit his job as soon as he can find another way to pay his college tuition. The "suspect in custody" received 10 years in prison, but he had been there before. He was nine years old the first time he got busted, for stealing a baseball bat, and he spent three months in a Dekalb County juvenile facility waiting for the court to find him a foster home. Now his record, as the police say, is as long as your arm.