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Illinois School Board Journal
September-October 1999
Teenage violence
by Connie Leinen
Connie Leinen is on the staff of Marshall University in West Virginia, providing administrative support to the social work department faculty. She is a full-time student of cultural anthropology and the mother of a fourteen-year-old son.
Thirty years ago, in 1969, nearly half a million young people gathered at Woodstock for a gathering that long has stood as a symbol of "peace and love." The festival has been remembered as much for the fact that the huge crowd managed to get through a long weekend with no violence as for the music and other activity that went on there.
In July, the 30th anniversary of Woodstock ended in violence and riot squads. Those at the anniversary celebration, mostly in their teens and early twenties, were given "Peace Candles" for a demonstration against gun violence. The candles were instead used as arson devices.
Juvenile violence, nationwide, is epidemic. The fact that it is spilling over into our schools is termed "a predictable continuum" of the violence in society at large. Daniel J. Flannery's 1997 monograph, "School Violence: Risk, Preventive Intervention, And Policy" offers an excellent overview. (Find it at http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/monographs/uds109/index.html) School boards across the country are rightly reassessing and implementing safety measures to protect students and teachers. It is equally important to address the causes.
We are hampered in both tasks by the difficulty of objectively evaluating the potential for violence, as well as procedures for risk assessment and policy implementation. The figures on violent crime periodically gathered by various groups and reported (and distorted) in the news media appear to be clear, but in fact are quite murky.
Murky numbers
Recent years have seen modest decreases in violent crime in the United States, but the proportion of crimes committed by juveniles is increasing. Recent reports have attempted to show that the situation is in hand. But what these figures illustrate is how easy it is to put the desired spin on statistics. Example: According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, 18 percent of teenagers in 1997 reported having carried a weapon to school during the month previous to the survey. That figure was released in 1998 and reported with alarm all over the country: One In Five High School Students Carries a Gun. As this article was being written, news stories were reassuringly comparing that figure to the 1991 results, which showed 26 percent of students polled said they had carried a weapon.
Rarely is it pointed out that the reports are highly suspect to begin with because the results are self-reported -- that is, the surveyors asked the teenagers if they had ever carried a weapon to school and accepted their answers without further confirmation.
Other news comes from the U.S. Department of Education, which reports that the number of students expelled from school for carrying weapons declined by nearly one-third during the 1997-98 school year. Some 3,930 students were expelled for firearms violations that year, down from 5,724 in 1996-97. Given the stringent security measures and zero tolerance policies adopted by many schools, that's not surprising. The numbers suggest that these measures are helping keep guns out of school -- but they don't show that students are any less likely to be violent.
Still other figures show that, if teenage violence is decreasing, it has a long way to go to get back to the "good old days." The American Psychological Association (APA) report, "Is Youth Violence Just Another Fact of Life?" states: "The Office of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention reports that between 1985 and 1994, there was a 40 percent increase in murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults reported to law enforcement agencies across the nation. And despite their relatively low numbers in population, youth were responsible for 26 percent of this growth in violence. (The report can be found at www.apa.org/ppo/violence.html) The vast majority of violent incidents have always involved male youth -- although young females are catching up.
Not just perpetrators, young people are victims of violence as well.
Some studies show that one in 12 high school students is threatened or injured with a weapon. Those aged 12 to 24 are at the highest risk of intentional harm.
Homicide is one of the top five causes of child death. Horribly, a parent or a step-parent is responsible for a third of it.
Investigations of child abuse across the spectrum of race and socio-economic class have risen. Experts tend to attribute most of that to an increased willingness to report. The present number of cases reported may not even be close to the truth.
Children who witness or experience violence are more likely to perpetrate or be further victimized as adults.
Even more often than they lash out at others, however, young people turn their violence onto themselves. The single largest cause of firearm death is suicide. Moreover, this form of violence against self has nearly tripled among teenagers since 1952. In 1990, the rate of successful attempts was 13 per 100,000 in the 15-24 year-old group. About 500,000 in this age group attempt suicide each year.
The statistics for teenage deaths by accident, homicide and suicide are depressing and confusing. On one hand we have the District of Columbia, with the highest rate of 298 deaths per 100,000 of teenagers aged 15 to 19 (1996). The number is catastrophic, but not too startling given what we know about the social and economic problems in the nation's capitol. The second highest state, however, was Wyoming with a far lower rate of poverty and other social problems and far less of the urban congestion that seems to foster such problems. Illinois came in 28th among the states, with 64 deaths per 100,000. African-American males are particularly in jeopardy: the leading cause of death for those aged 15 to 24 is death by a gun; guns are the second leading cause of death for those aged 5 to 14.
Wild card
Whether the number of teenagers committing crimes is continuing to rise or beginning to decline, there is little question that the savagery of the crimes is on the increase. Guns provide the means and violence-saturated entertainment and Internet sites may be providing the inspiration. The violent crimes that in earlier years might have involved one or two students now involve dozens. Fist-fighting has given way to multiple murder.
What is more, a new wild card has emerged. Traditionally, most homicides and other life-threatening crimes in the U.S. involve people who know one another. "Stranger" violence has been relatively rare, which left most of us feeling fairly safe. Now, random violence without apparent motive is becoming more common, especially among young people. Thirty-four percent of juvenile homicide is directed toward a stranger, compared to 20 percent of all homicides.
Can we deal constructively with teenage violence -- without turning our schools into prisons and without providing our prisons with an ongoing supply of young people (who, studies show, will get a good education there in the ways of crime)?
We know a great deal about violence. Violence is learned behavior. Children learn it from the their families and communities, according to the APA. And the communities don't have to be ghettos. The Littleton, Colorado shootings were so terrifying in part because the killers were upper-class children living in an upper-class neighborhood. Recently, Amish teenagers in Hazleton, Iowa were involved in a drunken rampage terrorizing an Amish family and destroying the family farm -- this, in a community known for its strong and unchanging family and religious values.
A report from the American Psychiatric Association suggests that certain personality traits (impulsivity, learning difficulties, low IQ, and fearlessness) increase a child's likelihood of engaging in violent behavior.
In her classic, and highly recommended, article "Do Americans Hate Children?" (Ms. Magazine, 1983) Letty Cottin Pogrebin says, "Poverty is the primary cause of prenatal and early childhood malnutrition, which has been shown to influence a person's behavior for the rest of his or her life." In a recent survey, schools with 75 percent of students eligible for free or reduced lunches experienced a 29 percent rate of physical conflict between students. Schools with less than 20 percent eligible reported a 13 percent rate of physical conflict.
The number of U.S. children in poverty is abominable by any standards -- 14 million according to the National Center for Child Poverty (NCCP). Nationally, more than 20 percent of children live below the U.S. census defined poverty level ($15,600 for a family of four in 1996) including 50 percent of all black children and 19 percent of Illinois children.
Even with our much ballyhooed strong economy, the United States has a far greater population of children in poverty than Holland (3.8 percent), France (4.6 percent), Germany (4.9 percent), Sweden (1.6 percent), or Great Britain (9.3 percent). Poverty is physically, emotionally, and intellectually brutal. The effects are long lasting, and we all pay the price.
Any discussion of teenage violence has to include the easy availability of guns. School shootings have provoked a renewed gun control debate. The Violence Policy Center quotes research indicating a correlation between low socioeconomic status and access to firearms, suggesting that poor children are doubly at risk of becoming involved in violence.
The average age for first gun ownership in this country is 12.5 years old, with the gun most likely received as a gift from an older male relative. Laws that seek to restrict juveniles' access to guns is well-founded, based on the same principles that limit their access to alcohol. Juveniles' use of firearms is more random than adults'. Teenage behavior is often marked by recklessness and bravado, while adults generally act with more restraint.
Juvenile violence in Europe is increasing, but is less deadly. Two reasons suggest themselves: the better economic status of Europe's children and less access to guns.
School size
Violence at school is increasing, but most school crime still involves vandalism and theft. Ten percent of public schools nationwide reported at least one serious crime, defined as "murder, rape or other type of sexual battery, suicide, physical attack or fight with a weapon, or robbery." Twenty percent of high schools and middle schools reported at least one violent crime, as did 15 percent of schools with minority students exceeding 50 percent.
The fact that more than a third of all schools with an enrollment of 1,000 or more reported serious violent crime should be considered in any discussion of school consolidation. Only four to nine percent of schools with less than a thousand students reported violent crimes. School size appears to be even more important in racially diverse settings.
In a survey of discipline problems, elementary and middle school principals reported physical conflict between students as one of their top three. Conversely, the top three discipline problems in high school were tobacco, drug and alcohol use. Yet, high schools are reporting more serious crimes involving physical conflict.
The statistics indicate the number of students engaging in physical conflict declines when students reach high school, but those who persist get more vicious.
APA states unequivocally, "Children at risk for aggression and violence are cognitively, imitatively, and socially different from their more socially competent peers." If we can identify children who are likely to be a problem, we must intervene with well-trained professionals. APA declares it is possible to predict the likelihood of adolescent and adult criminal behavior by observing the amount of aggression an eight-year-old displays in the classroom. Teachers must be equipped with the time and means to identify and provide intervention for problem youth. Flannery insists that lowering the student-teacher ratio is an absolute requirement to reduce school violence. Additionally, his study found that the success of any prevention program depends upon including parents.
Suggestions
Calling for early intervention and teaching of problem solving, stress management, assertiveness, anger control, and impulse control, APA suggests the following:
Start as early as possible.
Educate parents and other caregivers in prevention strategies. Teaching parents effective, non-violent coping skills is critical in any intervention program.
Address aggression as one aspect of antisocial behavior in a child -- not as the whole problem.
Address numerous components of the child's environment, including home, classroom, peer group, and so forth.
The role of parents in their child's aggressive behavior is a touchy issue. The "bad seed" theory (that some children are just born bad) has been studied and dismissed by the mainstream experts. In controversial research winning a prestigious award and presented in The Nurture Assumption (1998), Judith Rich Harris hypothesizes that a child is more influenced by peers than parents, developing one set of behavior for home and another for peer group settings (including school). In his recent book, Real Boys, William Pollack of Harvard University offers scathing criticism of the ways we reinforce and reward aggression when we dismiss events as "boys will be boys." He suggests that a "boy code" of tough guy standards is perpetuated through support of peers, parents and teachers.
All peer groups have unwritten rules and expectations. Peer acceptance is of paramount importance to teenagers and is reported to have been a factor in the Columbine tragedy. We must find the way to make violence seriously uncool among our youth.
Until we figure out how to do that, we must remember -- and remind our communities -- that our children our still safer at school than anyplace else. Before turning schools into fortresses, it is necessary to assess the psychological effects such a restrictive environment will have on those, the majority, who are not likely to harm.
We need to get our best minds, checking their biases and assumptions at the door, on the problem. As it is, research abounds but resembles all too much the ten blind philosophers and the elephant -- groping in the dark, each philosopher felt one part of the elephant and mistook it for the whole. Interdisciplinary and cooperative research involving all the social and behavioral sciences as well as legislators, law enforcement, criminal justice, educators, and parents must be coordinated and funded in a centralized, concerted effort. Due to a lack of outcome data, the federal government has cut funding for violence intervention programs. It is true that many dollars have been spent on unproved, untested protocols without much effect. But even more dollars are spent on prisons in spite of abysmal recidivism rates and considerable evidence that the primary effect of imprisonment is to create increasingly violent criminals.
"Schools free of violence" is an admirable National Education Goal for the Year 2000. Let's make it a successful one. These are our children. It has become a trite phrase, but, truly, it does takes a whole village. And a whole nation. Love them, feed them, nurture their bodies and minds.
And, as Crosby Stills Nash and Young sang at the first, peaceful, Woodstock, "teach your children well."
Resources
Numerous sources were consulted in compiling this article. To receive the complete list, call or fax your request to IASB, or e-mail jbillings@iasb.com.