|
|
Chapter 6
A Vision for the Future
In the late 1990s, people in the United States were stunned by a series
of tragic shootings at schools that were planned and carried out by youths. These
shocking, widely reported events prompted the preparation of this Surgeon Generals
report on youth violence. Yet these shootings were not characteristic of youth violence
nationally. Moreover, at the time of the shootings, youth violence in the United States
appeared to be on a downward trend.
Serious youth violencethat is, physical assault by a child or
adolescent that carries a significant risk of injuring or killing another
personbegan to emerge as a social and public health problem of sizable proportions
in the 1980s. Arrests of youths for index crimes (robbery, aggravated assault, rape, and
homicide) peaked in 1993 after a decade of climbing rapidly, leading some observers to
express doubt that anything could be done to halt the epidemic of youth violence. By 1999,
after 6 years of sustained decline nationwide, arrests of youths for robbery, rape, and
homicide began to resemble the pre-epidemic arrest rates of 1983. A striking exception to
this trend was arrests for aggravated assault, which remained 70 percent above 1983 rates.
While arrest records and victimization reports indicated that youth violence was generally declining, other sources of information presented a different picture. In approaching youth violence as a public health problem, this report has looked beyond arrest and other criminal justice records to several national surveys in which high schoolage youths report in confidence on their violent behavior. These self-reports reveal that the propensity for and actual involvement of youths in serious violence have not declined with arrest rates. Rather, they have remained at the peak rates of 1993, a troublesome finding. In January 2001, as this report goes to press, the first indications of a long-awaited downturn in self-reported violent behavior are being countered by signs from the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports database that the decline in arrests of youths for violent crimes has bottomed out and, for some index crimes, has begun to climb again.
Clearly, the dynamics and magnitude of youth violence remain fluid and
complex. Nevertheless, research in the past several decades has developed a wealth of
information about the causes of youth violence and how to prevent it. Numerous studies
have identified and examined specific risk factors for violencethe personal and
environmental features of young peoples lives that increase the statistical
probability of their engaging in violent behaviors. Research also has begun to identify
protective factors that appear to buffer the effects of risk factors. While this
information has been accumulating, researchers, youth service practitioners, and others
have been designing, implementing, and evaluating a variety of programs and strategies to
reduce or prevent the occurrence of youth violence. The best of these interventions target
populations of young people identified as being particularly at risk of becoming involved
in a violent lifestyle.
Many effective intervention programs exist to reduce and prevent youth
violence. The United States is well past the point where anyone can claim that
"nothing works" to prevent youth violence or to modify the destructive life
courses of youths who are either engaged in or appear to be headed for lifestyles
characterized by violence. At the same time, however, many purported youth violence
prevention programs used today are untested, and some are known to be ineffective or even
deleterious to a child or adolescents healthy, safe development.
The courses of action highlighted below are potential next steps. These
are not formal policy recommendations. Instead, they represent a vision for the future
built on information we possess today. They are intended for policy makers, service and
treatment providers, people affiliated with the juvenile justice system, researchers, and
most important, the people of the United States. This vision for the future is presented
with the hope that it will engage an expanding number of citizens in the challenge of
redressing the problem of youth violence.
Scientific research is an essential underpinning of the public health
approach to the problem of youth violence. Years of extensive research have revealed the
scope of the problem, and we are beginning to understand how to intervene effectively to
reduce and prevent violence. Yet most violence prevention programs used in schools,
communities, and the justice system today have not been subjected to systematic scientific
evaluation, so their effectivenessor lack of effectivenessis unknown. Given
evidence that some well-intentioned prevention and intervention programs have proved to be
harmful, it is imperative that all programs be scientifically evaluated. Research must
also be prepared to address areas of emerging concern. One that has become increasingly
clear is the need for studies to investigate intimate violence, or dating violence, among
youths to identify patterns that predict continuation of such behaviors into adulthood and
to design new types of interventions targeting this form of violent behavior. Another area
of concern requiring research is the impact of violent interactive media, such as computer
games, on serious violent behavior.
This Surgeon Generals report is issued at a time of unprecedented
scientific opportunity in numerous disciplinesdevelopmental psychology, sociology,
criminology, epidemiology, neuroscience, and many other fields. No single research
specialty holds the key to understanding, treating, and preventing violence. Rather, they
must work together. One of the greatest challenges to researchers today is finding new
ways to use the tools, strategies, and insights from these diverse fields of research to
reveal the many factors that may lead a young person towardor protect a young person
frominvolvement in violence. A related need is to invest in cross-level research
designs that will enable researchers to examine individual, family, and community factors
simultaneously.
Research frequently examines questions and issues that crop up in the
daily lives of millions of peoplethe relationship of media depictions of violence to
violent behavior is a key example; the impact of strategies to discourage firearm use is
another. Such familiarity often increases the likelihood that a person will hold strong
opinions regarding the effect of television or popular music, or the presence and use of
weapons, on violent behavior. Appropriately designed and conducted research offers a
factual basis, rather than opinion, for proposing and debating social policy. It is
therefore critical to devise ways of giving people with diverse interests (including
parents, teachers, and others) a voice in identifying urgent research questions and to
inform them about the conclusions drawn from research.
The carrying and use of guns by youths in violent encounters have
declined dramatically since 1993, the peak of the violence epidemic. To accelerate that
decline, we must seek to understand more completely the reasons for it. Are youths
decisions not to carry or use guns in violent encounters related to any specific
strategies put in place to discourage firearm use, or did the drop in firearm use result
from other factors or conditions? Clearly, important questions remain about precisely what
has happened in communities nationwide to reduce the frequency with which adolescents
carry guns. While some research has addressed these questions (Blumstein & Wallman,
2000), further studies are imperativedata documenting the continuing magnitude of
violent behaviors suggest that a return to lethal violence is likely if adolescents once
again carry and use guns in violent encounters.
In the 1990s, faced with the epidemic of violence and largely unaware
that research had found some violence prevention programs to be effectiveas well as
often buying into the "just desserts" philosophythe only option some
legislators saw was to lock up violent youths to protect society. New evidence makes a
compelling case that intervention programs can be cost-effective and can reduce the
likelihood that youths will become repeat offenders. Given this evidence, it is in the
countrys interest to place as many violent youths as possible in these programs,
thus correcting the imbalance that now favors use of the criminal justice system over
effective intervention programs. Reclaiming youths from a violent lifestyle has clear
advantages over warehousing them in prisons and training schools.
Effective programs are not available in many communities. Special
efforts must be undertaken to increase awareness of these programs, provide technical
assistance and information about them, and devise incentives for states and communities to
invest in tested programs. At present, states and communities are squandering substantial
amounts of money on untested programs or programs known to be ineffective. Policy makers
must be encouraged to focus existing resources on programs that work; evidence of
effectiveness might be required, for example, as a condition of receiving Federal or local
funding. An informed public is also critical in building support for effective
alternatives to incarceration.
Experience has shown repeatedly that intervention programs shown to be
effective in their original sites do not yield uniform outcomes when replicated elsewhere.
Upon examination, program evaluators often find that subtle modifications have been
introduced into the model program. Lack of a particular category of personnel in a given
location, for example, may prompt a program director to substitute professionals or
paraprofessionals without proper credentials. Face-to-face training sessions that initially
encouraged interaction between a program originator and new staff may be supplanted by
videotaped tutorials. The frequency of participants contacts with a program may be
lessened or program duration abbreviated.
Legislators, agency administrators, and program directors should be
encouraged to identify incentives for ensuring that the integrity of a model program is
not compromised when it is replicated.
The major challenge in implementing effective intervention programs on
a national scale is guaranteeing a well-trained staff that understands the intervention
and its limitations. Staff must be adequately trained to deliver a particular intervention
in the specific settings for which it was designed. Yet because the supply of
appropriately trained individuals who are available to work in the variety of settings in
which violence prevention programs operate is limited, operational entropy often sets in.
Establishing formal training programs and university certification programs will help
ensure the quality of interventions.
Identifying specific youth violence interventions as effective in this
report will probably stimulate demand for these programs. Youth advocacy organizations
have an opportunity to educate citizens on how to interact effectively with their local
educational and juvenile justice systems, with appropriate sectors of the elected
government, and with private organizations involved in youth violence prevention.
Media campaigns and public service announcements offer a means of
increasing public awareness. News or documentary television programs featuring model
programs have had a measurable impact both on the funding of the programs and on the
volume of requests from sites throughout the country for information about the programs.
The 1938 film Boys Town, with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, proved highly
beneficial to the reputation and funding opportunities available to Boys Town.
Conceivably, featuring model youth violence prevention programs in popular films today
could have an equivalent effect.
The move to a public health focus on violence involves new players and
new collaborative partnerships among criminologists, psychologists, psychiatrists,
sociologists, neuroscientists, and others. Physicians and other general medical service
providers have important roles to play, but they are not yet sufficiently involved.
Preparation of the Surgeon Generals report underscored the risks of disciplinary
compartmentalization in the study of youth violence.
There is no common place where information needed by all parties
interested in the problem of youth violence can be exchanged. A rich literature on
research and services appears in the specialty journals of various disciplines, in
professional newsletters, in the mass media, and increasingly on the World Wide Web. Lack
of interaction between academic research centers and the community-based agencies
responsible for implementing youth violence prevention programs or providing medical
services to victims (many of whom are also perpetrators) can result in significant costs.
A periodic, highly visible national summit that receives wide popular
as well as specialized media coverage would offer a way of disseminating information on
new research findings, effective programs and strategies, best practices, and related
information for diverse audiences.
The proportion of law enforcement agencies nationwide that report
arrests to the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program has been declining. In 1999,
participating agencies represented only 63 percent of the U.S. population. The accuracy of
national estimates would be enhanced if this reporting rate were improved. In addition to
expanding the participation rate, opportunities for improvement might entail:
- Including arrest rates for all racial and ethnic groups. Hispanics in particular
are not represented in systematic data collection systems.
- Encouraging law enforcement agencies to participate in the National Incident-Based
Reporting System. Developed by the UCR, the incident-based reporting system provides a
much richer data set for tracking violent crime than the aggregated data available in the
current UCR. Another potentially useful, innovative data set is the National Violent Death
Reporting System proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This data set
would help in monitoring the magnitude and characteristics of youth violence on a timely
basis so that programmatic and policy responses can be more effectively planned and
evaluated.
- Develop a standard set of questions for national self-report surveys (such as Monitoring
the Future) that include serious violent offenses. Annual data from these surveys should
be obtained from all adolescents age 11 through 17, not just high school seniors. At
present, variation among surveys in the age of respondents, data obtained, and frequency
of data collection severely limit any composite picture that might result. Data collection
efforts must make use of the best methodology available and include follow-up questions on
each reported violent event to determine weapon use, drug or alcohol involvement at the
time of the event, seriousness of injury, victims relationship to offender, number
of youths involved in the attack, and other details. Such data enable researchers to
correct for the overreporting in the simple checklist used in most surveys.
Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General offers compelling testimony that the safety and well-being of children and adolescents are issues of the utmost importance and urgency to individuals and organizations throughout the United States. The report has drawn on the expertise of countless persons in diverse private organizations in local, state, and Federal government agencies; in schools; and most important, in familiesall of whom are dedicating immense energy and caring to countering the most common threat to the lives of young Americans. Thanks to these efforts and to the insights and actions of young people themselves, it is clear today that youth violence is not an intractable problem; rather, it is a behavior that we can understand, treat, and prevent. This final chapter has offered courses of action intended to help inform the decisions that we must make as we strive to ensure that every child has the opportunity to grow and mature safely, healthily, and happily.
Blumstein, A., & Wallman, J. (2000). The crime drop in America. Cambridge, United Kingdom:
Cambridge University Press.
Home | Contents |
Previous
|