Jonathan Witt, Ph.D. is a Senior Contributor to The Stream and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Witt is the author, with Jay Richards, of The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom that Tolkien Got and the West Forgot (Ignatius 2014). An evangelical, Witt co-authored another book with a Catholic friend, Benjamin Wiker: A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature (IVP 2006).
Witt was an English professor at Lubbock Christian University in Texas before a midlife crisis plunged him into the think tank world, first as a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, and then as a research fellow at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He also served for a time as managing editor of The Stream.
He has written many popular and academic articles, scripted three documentaries that have aired on PBS, scripted two DVD Series for Zondervan, and was the lead writer for PovertyCure.org and the PovertyCure DVD Series. He also served as the lead writer for the award-winning feature-length documentary Poverty, Inc.
Crime rates in the United States have been steadily declining for two decades, with levels in the United States about half what they were 20 years ago. This gradual decline holds true even in the perennially high-risk demographic of young…
