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Youth Gun Violence Prevention

The Unique Dynamics of Youth Gun Violence Prevention

Adapted from Reducing Gun Violence: An Overview of Programs and Initiatives. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. 1996.

An extensive review of the research on juvenile gun crime suggests that gun violence by youths must be addressed in the context of delinquency issues and related risk factors, including abuse, neglect, and gun violence perpetrated against youth. This review, published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, places youth gun death statistics in context by providing information beyond the numbers. It highlights the circumstances and broader significance surrounding the incidence of youth gun violence, including young people’s access to and use of guns; the role of drugs and drug dealing; the importance of gun dealers and types of guns; the level of youth gun deaths associated with domestic arguments, suicide, and accidents rather than criminal behavior; and the effect of young people’s social maladjustment or lack of training in proper gun handling. In general, the context of youth gun violence reveals many interrelated factors that must be addressed in an intelligent approach to this problem.

Among these factors:

  • A cycle of fear. The community disorganization theory explores the influence of the prevalence of guns among drug sellers as a stimulus to others in the community to arm themselves for self-defense, to settle disputes that have nothing to do with drugs, or just to gain respect.

  • Lack of opportunity. High levels of poverty, high rates of single-parent households, educational failures, and a widespread sense of economic hopelessness are linked with greater use of guns by young people than among counterpart groups.

  • Culture of machismo and violence. In addition to the environment of fear in which young people live, youth violence is affected by cultural dynamics related to the illicit gun trade that has popularized guns and has made “backing down” from arguments and “losing face” difficult for young people.

  • Lack of faith in law enforcement. Youth violence can be a response to the perception among the violence-prone youth that public authorities cannot protect them or maintain order in their neighborhoods.

  • Developmental issues. Relatively high rates of murders by the very young raise concerns that a “greater recklessness” may be associated with teenagers than with adults. Guns in the hands of young people can engender fear that young people are less likely to exercise the necessary restraint in handling dangerous weapons, especially rapid-fire assault weapons.  Young people often have an underdeveloped sense of the value of life, their own as well as others. They may not have the ability to understand how one seemingly isolated act can powerfully affect an entire community.

Appropriate Strategies

The following types of prevention strategies address problem areas early on in the lives of violence-prone children and must be included in any truly comprehensive strategy to reduce youth gun violence in the United States, according to OJJDP:

  • Providing preventive services. Identifying children at risk and referring them to appropriate services are important first steps to reducing youth gun violence. These services should include teaching children how to manage their anger without resorting to violence.  Violence-prone attitudes seem to increase between grades five and six and then stabilize. Prevention programs that identify, address, and change attitudes, motives, and beliefs that contribute to violent behavior should be initiated early.

  • Working with witnesses to violence. It is important to offer young perpetrators, victims, and witnesses of violence adequate psychological health services.

  • Supporting public education. To encourage and support nonviolent attitudes and behavior among youth, long-term public and family education programs and gun safety curricula in school must be included in violence-reduction strategies.

  • Reducing Fear. Because the fear of assault is often claimed as the reason for carrying a firearm, programs should be implemented that address the risk of victimization, improve school climate, create safe havens, and foster a safe community environment. Accomplishing this public policy goal means reducing both perceived environmental dangers and reducing actual opportunities for weapon-associated violence.

  • Investing in drug treatment and prevention. Additional investments in drug treatment and reducing juvenile alcohol and drug use are also effective prevention strategies. Reducing the illicit drug trade would reduce drug-related violence as well as drug-induced violence.

  • Improving opportunities. Strategies that address structural problems in the family, community, and society should complement any intervention focused on individual perpetrators. The culture of violence and lack of opportunity in inner cities, in particular, should be addressed along with provision of economic and educational opportunities.

  • Helping in high-risk environments:  Intervention and prevention strategies needed in such areas include such highly specific steps as getting guns out of the hands of kids, reducing the supply of illegal guns, and reporting and detection by peers.


 
 
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