Youth Violence.

• Author: Ferrall, Bard R.
• Position: Review

YOUTH VIOLENCE (Michael Tonry & Mark H. Moore, Eds.) (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1998) 524 pp.

A review of the available evidence indicates, according to the editors, that the level of youth violence in the 1980s and early 1990s was above the historically expected level. Though the level of youth violence peaked in 1993 and has been declining every year since, it remains a significant concern. The editors have collected these essays which attempt to explain the reason for the rise (as well as the leveling and fall), and to suggest possible programs for intervention. The reasons most often advanced for the rise in youth violence (demographic risk factors, the spreading culture of violence, the crack epidemic, the increasing presence of street gangs, the increased availability of guns, etc.) seem quantitatively insufficient to explain the rise. Also the advanced reasons do not explain the suddenness of the rise, and may be best understood as enabling conditions rather than precipitating causes of the rise in youth violence. The use of a linear model and the search for a single factor may be misdirected. (One essay, however, attributes the rise of youth violence above historically expected levels entirely to the recently increased availability of guns.) The editors suggest a more dynamic model involving the interaction of the factors listed above. Topics in this volume include the social ecology of youth violence, the problem of school violence, gang violence, and social...