Fox Butterfield is a New York Times reporter who periodically has people point at him and laugh. Why? Because of articles like this one.

The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell, according to a study by the Justice Department released Sunday.

What never appears to occur to the Times is the possibility that the crime rate drops because more criminals are in prison.

Well, today the Times publishes a silly letter from the liberal Marian Wright Edelman along the same lines.

Although juvenile crime has steadily declined in the United States over the last decade, there seem to be more and more calls for zero tolerance when it comes to children, for harsher penalties and, most disturbingly, for more transfer of accused children from the juvenile justice system to the adult criminal system.

Juvenile crime has steadily declined because there are "more calls for zero tolerance."