Beyond bars: states are looking to reduce youth violence by addressing its causes in a more comprehensive way.

AuthorHendrikson, Hollie
PositionYOUTH VIOLENCE

The equivalent of about 10,000 busloads of kids end up in emergency rooms for violence-related injuries every year. The journey ends there for the more than 5,500 children murdered every year.

Law enforcement plays an important role in reducing youth violence, but preventing it before it occurs is even more pressing for states and communities. Violence in young people's lives is a burden to the public health system; understanding this has helped lawmakers, community leaders and public health advocates develop ways to curb it.

Youth violence affects more than just those injured. Every homicide touches 10 to 20 more people. Family, friends and the community must live with the long-term consequences of violent acts. Communities with high numbers of violent kids also have higher health care costs, reduced productivity, decreased property values and disrupted social services, according to the World Health Organization.

And while violence among young people has decreased since the 1990s, it still costs the United States more than $10 billion a year in medical expenses and lost work productivity.

The Path to Peace

Homicides among young people, especially among young men, more than doubled in the late '80s and early '90s. Law enforcement responded with zero tolerance policies that addressed the violence, but not its causes. These policies sent young offenders into the adult justice system for usually minor offenses, but failed to focus on how to prevent fighting and other types of violence in the first place.

So the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, along with Congress and the U.S. surgeon general, shifted their perspective and began to view youth violence as a major public health problem. Beginning in 1992, with money from Congress, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded activities to prevent violence into schools and other areas and measured the effectiveness of existing youth violence prevention programs around the country.

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After 1993, violence and juvenile arrests began to decrease, suggesting that some of the new programs were working. A 2001 U.S. surgeon general's report found programs that focused on classroom attendance, academic progress and school behavior helped reduce violence and delinquency among kids. But boot camps--residential programs that take place in correctional institutions--and "scared straight" programs that show the brutality of prison life were ineffective.

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