Urban youth violence has become important and threatening enough to be declared a public health issue: a threat to the physical safety of urban dwellers (especially youth). As such, urban violence becomes a responsibility of the U.S. Surgeon General. The Report is obviously not a specific, but a vital compendium of studies into the causes and means of prevention of such violence. It is primarily, but not exclusively, focused on urban violence. The following is a summary of that Report. 

 

The recent epidemic of youth violence began during the 1980s, a period of economic prosperity.  Since then, homicide rates—the most obvious indicator of youth violence—have declined significantly since their peak in 1993. But other indicators (such as aggravated assault rates as well as youths' confidential self-reporting of violent crimes) are still much higher than pre-epidemic levels.  Youth are still engaged in consistently violent behavior, indicating that there is still a strong possibility violence could again spiral out of control. 

 

According to the Surgeon General, "the key to preventing a great deal of violence is understanding where and when it occurs, determining what causes it, and scientifically documenting which of many strategies for prevention and intervention are truly effective."  One of the great public myths this report is trying to debunk is the feeling that youth violence is an intractable problem.  While there is still plenty of debate on how to view the problem, there is also a great deal of academic consensus on the conditions that are "risk factors" for violence, and on what sort of programs and policies can be relied upon to reduce violence in real-world settings: "The most important conclusion of the report is that the United States is well past the 'nothing works' era with respect to reducing and preventing youth violence." 

 

Youth violence is a public health concern (and therefore under the Surgeon General’s jurisdiction) because it is one of the leading causes of death and injury among youth.  The discipline of public health emphasizes the prevention of medical problems, but medical professionals could traditionally only treat the symptoms of violence—generally bullet wounds. Dissatisfaction with this approach led the public health community to begin to see youth violence as a medical epidemic that could be prevented, just like malaria or tobacco use.  This report is the culmination of the research begun by that movement back in 1985. 

 

Violent crime is defined as any of four criminal offenses: homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and rape.  Arrests for robbery and aggravated assault are far more common than for the other two crimes: in the United States in 1999, the last year with accessible data for this report, there were 69,600 young people arrested for aggravated assault, 28,000 for robbery, 5,000 for rape and 1,400 for murder.  However, this is only part of the picture, as arrests are made in less than half of all reported crimes, and not all crimes are even reported.  Still, arrest rates are a reasonably good barometer of violence levels--they can be assumed to go up and down as violence increases and decreases--and they are much easier to measure than total levels of violence. 

 

Between 1983 and 1993, youth arrest rates for violent crimes increased by 70%, and the arrest rate for homicides tripled.  Firearms played a key role in this epidemic: in 1983 there were about as many youth arrested for gun homicide as for homicide done with any other weapon, but in 1993 there were almost five times as many arrests for gun homicide.  That figure has since declined to only twice as many; meanwhile, the non-gun homicide rate has stayed relatively constant throughout the period.  This means that the homicide epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s was almost entirely performed with firearms, and the recent decline was similarly a decline in firearm use.  Studies have attributed this pattern to changes in gun carrying habits: youths during the epidemic were more likely to carry a gun and to use it in the event of a conflict, and since then youth have not carried guns as often and have not used them as often in their conflicts.  Studies have also found that this rise and decline in gun violence took place almost entirely among African-American youth. 

 

The other way of measuring youth violence is self-reporting data: anonymous, confidential surveys of youths' habits.  These surveys show a very different picture: according to these surveys, youth violence has leveled off and not declined at all since 1993, still at twice the pre-epidemic levels of violence.  This contradiction is hard to reconcile with arrest data: the report does not say conclusively whether fewer youths are being arrested for their crimes or whether their violence is now of a less criminal type. 

 

Trends in violence also vary by race and gender.  Young men are several times more likely to commit a violent crime than young women, but women have been narrowing the gap in recent years.  Young men are about ten times as likely to be arrested for homicide or robbery, but only three times more likely to commit aggravated assault than young women are.  The difference between black and white youth is more complicated.  Self-reporting data finds that black youth are at most 50% more likely to commit a violent crime than white youths, though some measures find the ratio to be almost equal.  However, black youths are still several times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime.  For example, black youths were nine times as likely to be arrested for homicide in 1993, and still more than five times as likely in 1998.  The report is not prepared to draw any conclusions based on this information: it implies that black youths are much more likely to be arrested for the crimes they commit, but it cannot say so with confidence. 

 

Schools are relatively safe places: less than 1% of all youth homicides occur in schools, at school events, or on the way to or from school. However, worries about the safety of schools are widespread and increasing: in 1977, 24% of parents worried about their children's safety at school, while in 1999 nearly half of parents said they were worried. According to a Gallup survey, "in May 1999, shortly after the shootings at [suburban] Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, 74 percent of parents said that a school shooting was very likely or somewhat likely to happen in their community."  

 

As would be expected, youths who are members of gangs are much more likely to be violent; gangs are responsible for a majority of youth violence, and violence is much more common in schools where gangs are present.  Studies of gang participation have found that, "the racial/ethnic composition of gangs in 1999 was 47 percent Hispanic, 31 percent African American, 13 percent non-Hispanic white, and 7 percent Asian. These rates have been relatively constant since 1990." 

 

Most serious violence begins in the second decade of life, and there are certain common trajectories along which violent behavior tends to develop.  Usually, someone who commits their first violent act before puberty will go on to commit more frequent and more serious violence later in adolescence, compared to other violent youth. Such people usually show warning signs of aggression even from early childhood.  This is referred to as the "early onset" trajectory, and while youth who follow this path are less common, their actions are more severe. The majority of violent youth, though, commit their first act of violence after puberty, and these "late onset" youth usually do not show any warning signs in early childhood. A typical career of violence for a late onset offender is usually either a year of repeated acts of violence or several years of occasional violence.  

 

Youth who commit crimes before puberty are still not guaranteed to become chronic offenders. A study in Rochester found that 39% of people who commit their first crime before age 9 eventually became chronic offenders, while a Denver study put the figure at 62%.  

 

Youths who are engaged in serious violence are also much more likely to be involved in other "problem behaviors": the vast majority of them have also been involved in property crimes and public disorder crimes, a large minority sell drugs, and a small majority report abusing drugs: "that is, they reported health or relationship problems, or both, associated with their drug use".  They are also more likely to engage in early sexual activity, reckless driving, and to drop out of school. Additionally, violent youths are much more likely to be victims of violence themselves. 

 

Studies have found that only 20% of violent teenagers continue their violent behavior into their twenties. 

 

Rather than discuss the direct causes of youth violence, the public health approach prefers to discuss conditions that are risk factors for violence, as these can be more conclusively measured than direct causes.  In this context, a risk factor is any situation that correlates with violent behavior, whose presence can be considered to make a youth more likely to become violent.  The strongest factors are mostly social, matters regarding the people with whom a youth spends time. Gang membership is an obvious risk for violence, but just as strong is being part of a delinquent peer group, regardless of any formal organization.  Even stronger a risk, in fact, is for a youth to have weak social ties overall.  Other strong risk factors include coming from a family with low socio-economic status, having antisocial parents, being male, and using drugs or alcohol at a young age.  Smaller risk factors include aggressive and restless behavior, poor relationships with parents, low performance in school, low IQ, exposure to media violence at a young age, and many others.  These risk factors function differently at different ages: family factors and exposure to violence or drugs are much stronger risks before age 11, while peer factors, psychological factors and school performance are stronger risks after this age. 

 

Note that no degree of risk factors guarantees that a youth will become violent.  Risk factors are tools of statistical analysis; they are not designed to be used in individual cases, and most youths that exhibit risk factors for violence never wind up becoming violent.  Additionally, risk factors by definition exclude situational factors: while it is well known that events such as recent bullying or a broken relationship are strong predictors of forthcoming acts of violence, they cannot be measured statistically as risk factors can be, and are therefore discussed in different contexts.

 

A great deal of money is spent today for the express purpose of preventing youth violence.  However, the report found little relationship between the funding of a program and its actually effectiveness in preventing youth violence.  There is currently a great deal of academic consensus as to what sorts of programs are effective (though this was not true as late as the 1970s), but that consensus is not reflected by the practices of the justice system, schools and community programs.  Instead, "precious resources continue to be spent on ineffective programs. Some experts believe that youth crime and violence rates could be 'substantially' reduced simply by reallocating the money now spent on ineffective policies and programs to those that do work". 

 

The report's method of determining best practices was to first of all to collect all relevant evaluations of individual programs, and to aggregate them into a "meta-evaluation" that measures the effectiveness of all of all these programs at once.  Then they examined each one individually to find patterns in their goals and methods and to determine primary factors of a good program.  This latter part is admittedly a subjective assessment. 

 

The report's research found that nearly half of all programs designed to stop youth violence have no effect at all on whether the youth involved with the program eventually become involved with violence. Some of these programs are even harmful, meaning that youth involved with them are even more likely to become involved with violence after joining the program. Still, more than half of all programs are found to be at least somewhat effective, and some are very effective. Studies have shown that most effective programs are those focused on training practical life skills, teaching problem solving, moral reasoning, training parents and home visitation. The least effective methods include boot camps, gun buyback programs, grade non-promotion and trial in adult courts. 

 

According to the Illinois Center for Violence Prevention, "Violence costs the United States an estimated $425 billion in direct and indirect costs each year. Of these costs, approximately $90 billion is spent on the criminal justice system, $65 billion on security, $5 billion on the treatment of victims, and $170 billion on lost productivity and quality of life. The annual costs to victims are approximately $178 billion."  It is therefore much cheaper for the nation to invest in violence preventions programs as an alternative to incarceration and other penalties.  The problem is that prevention programs take a long time to show an effect: initiatives that train parents and young children will not have an impact on crime until those children become teenagers, and programs that try to work on the broader cultural level can take even longer.  Another problem is that it is often hard to replicate the success of a certain local program at a more national level.  The successes of local programs are often due to their being tailored to specific local needs and resources, or to the particular effectiveness of their staff.  Still, the report insists on the necessary of investing in the programs that have been found to be effective. 

 

1. What is your interest in, and commitment to, the issue of youth violence? Do you see this as a very important social issue?
2. How carefully have you read this important Report on this issue? What comments, criticisms, or suggestions do you have to this summary or the Report itself.
3. Do you agree that there are myths, and disagreeing opinions, about urban  youth violence.
4. In your opinion, what are the main causes of urban violence?
5. How would you list what you think should be done about youth violence and unsafe streets?
6. What further study needs to be undertaken by youth workers, educators, civic and religious leaders?

IMPLICATIONS

1. As well as the damage done participants in youthful violence, innocent victims are bound to wheelchairs or have lost their lives, and families left to grieve.
2. Fear of urban violence is causing great fear. Children are confined within apartments, and young people deprived of outdoor activities and are fearful of going to school.
3. The great cost to society is mentioned above. Confining violent youth in prison costs more than putting them in alternative schools or residencies— or providing them with full tuition, room and board at a university.
4. If suburban youth were losing their lives at a similar rate to urban youth, a national campaign to stop the shooting would be undertaken.

Peter Bass (with Dean Borgman, Intro, Questions & Implications) cCYS