In this presentation, made to the White House Conference on Character and Community, the author advocates creating a preventive intervention system for chronic violence; that scientific research supports this system; that it is cost-beneficial to do so; and that it is necessary in order to help the next generation become productive citizens. He argues that public schools are a reasonable home for this system. He begins by summarizing the scientific research that provides the basis for preventive intervention. Then he describes a program that he and his colleagues have developed and evaluated, called Fast Track. Finally, he concludes that this program, and others like it, are worth supporting, and that a higher proportion of federal dollars should go into testing prevention programs. (Contains 3 figures.) [This presentation was made in collaboration with John E. Bates, Karen L. Bierman, John D. Coie, E. Michael Foster, Mark T. Greenberg, John E. Lochman, Robert J. McMahon, Gregory S. Pettit, and Ellen E. Pinderhughes. This document was produced by the Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.]