Youth Violence Research

This book identifies and discusses types of youth violence in American society today. Causes of youth violence are discussed and linked to prevention and treatment programs and strategies to assess the likelihood of aggression or violence in children and youths are identified. Other topics covered include violence among girls, gang and drug-related violence, antibullying programs and spatial mapping strategies to reduce violence in schools.

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This is a resource for dealing with both perpetrators and victims of violence and understanding the risk factors facing youth. Presenting an assessment of effects of exposure to violence and the continuity of aggression from early childhood to adulthood, it outlines an integration strategy for public policy towards prevention and treatment.

Is a teenage violent offender a dangerous predator-or a vulnerable innocent that we should rescue from a life of crime? J. William Spencer probes our ambivalent response to youth violence to show how deeply entwined issues of crime, age, race, and class distort our understanding of an important social problem.

This volume provides a systematic overview of the contemporary Latin American youth violence phenomenon. The authors focus specifically on youth gangs, juvenile justice issues, and applied research concerns, providing a rounded and balanced exploration of this increasingly important topic.

How do economic conditions such as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth impact youth violence? Economics and Youth Violence provides a much-needed new perspective on this crucial issue. Pinpointing the economic factors that are most important, the editors and contributors in this volume explore how different kinds of economic issues impact children, adolescents, and their families, schools, and communities.Offering new and important insights regarding the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and youth violence across a variety of times and places, chapters cover such issues as the effect of inflation on youth violence; new quantitative analysis of the connection between race, economic opportunity, and violence; and the cyclical nature of criminal backgrounds and economic disadvantage among families. Highlighting the complexities in the relationship between economic conditions, juvenile offenses, and the community and situational contexts in which their connections are forged, Economics and Youth Violence prompts important questions that will guide future research on the causes and prevention of youth violence. Contributors: Sarah Beth Barnett, Eric P. Baumer, Philippe Bourgois, Shawn Bushway, Philip J. Cook, Robert D. Crutchfield, Linda L. Dahlberg, Mark Edberg, Jeffrey Fagan, Xiangming Fang, Curtis S. Florence, Ekaterina Gorislavsky, Nancy G. Guerra, Karen Heimer, Janet L. Lauritsen, Jennifer L. Matjasko, James A. Mercy, Matthew Phillips, Richard Rosenfeld, Tim Wadsworth, Valerie West, Kevin T. Wolff

The rash of school shootings in the late 1990s has generated a tremendous amount of public concern about youth aggression and violence. But students, trainees, and professionals who work with children and adolescents have had no concise or systematic survey of our current knowledge about causes and effective approaches to intervention and prevention on which to draw. Youth Aggression and Violence has filled the void. Comprehensive and readable, it: * utilizes theory and research from the developmental psychology of "normal" children and adolescents, as well as material on "abnormal" forms of development, such as disruptive behavior disorders and juvenile delinquency; * situates youthful aggression and violence within the overall framework of children's moral development; * integrates quantitative research with carefully considered qualitative research and case studies; * discusses the genetic and biological underpinnings of youthful aggression, as well as family and social factors related to antisocial behavior; * emphasizes cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes involved in youth aggression and violence; * provides in-depth coverage of juvenile killers and school violence; * examines female aggression and violence in a variety of contexts; and * critically examines a number of questions frequently discussed in conjunction with youth violence, such as media violence, firearm accessibility, and the relationship between self-esteem and aggression.

Youth violence has long been a contentious and perplexing issue in current debates on crime policy, not the least because of the sharp increase in violence among young minority males from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Featuring articles by leading American and European scholars from many fields, this book overviews policy issues and research developments concerning crime and violence among the young.