Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention, and Social Policy (Clinical Practice) [Hardcover]

Daniel J., Ph.D. Flannery (Editor), C. Ronald Huff (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0880488093 | ISBN-13: 978-0880488099 | Publication Date: November 1998 | Edition: 1

Scholars, public officials, and reporters have described the violence of this decade as epidemic as the homicide rate has doubled for adolescents between 1984 and 1994. Current policy to combat youth violence is primarily reactive, focusing on increased punishments and spending millions of dollars each year on incarceration. Providing the latest research on effective prevention and intervention strategies for reducing youth violence, Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention, and Social Policy is a comprehensive resource for dealing with both perpetrators and victims of violence and understanding the risk factors facing youth. It covers -Results from tested prevention and intervention programs including practical descriptions, core components for success, evaluation findings, costs, and lessons learned from actual implementations -Intervention techniques that teach prosocial behavior to antisocial youth -Psychopharmacological and neurobiological issues in the treatment of violent youth -The statistical predictability of adult aggression based on childhood aggression -The effects of exposure to violence and the continuity of aggression from childhood to adulthood -An integration strategy for a sound public policy toward prevention and treatment of violent youth Complete with an extensive reference list of over 700 publications and studies, this practical volume appeals to a wide audience including sociologists, criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, educators, counselors, and nurses.

Editorial Reviews

From The New England Journal of Medicine

Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention, and Social Policy expands the traditional criminologic view of youth violence to include some perspectives on prevention but, for the most part, stays rather close to conventional views of adolescent delinquency.

Forms of behavior and activities that traditionally have been regarded as criminal are at the core of each chapter. These activities are mostly those of boys. With one notable exception (the chapter by Chesney-Lind and Brown), violence by and toward adolescent girls is largely ignored. With straightforward honesty, Gorman-Smith and Avery note that the information they present is based on research on male delinquents and its applicability and generalizability to female delinquents are unknown. In addition to neglecting girls' violence, certain types of behavior of boys are notably absent. Specifically, boys' violence toward girls is barely acknowledged, despite the fact that adolescent girls are widely believed to be the group at highest risk for sexual assault and that physical violence between intimates often begins in the dating years. Given that ethnic background and socioeconomic status are directly acknowledged as central variables in understanding youth violence, it is perplexing that sex, another key sociodemographic characteristic, is either ignored or offered only a passing nod by most of the authors.

The introductory chapter by Elliott and Tolan identifies four strategies for the prevention or control of violence that were introduced in the 1990s: treatment of juvenile offenders as adults; longer sentences, such as those proposed by "three strikes" laws; gun-control policies, such as the Brady bill; and boot-camp programs for young offenders. The authors note that these policies are largely punitive, legalistic, and reactive and that they have broad public support. These observations lead one to the question of the role of science in the public debate about youth violence. The prevailing judgment seems to be that the issues in these debates are not a matter of knowledge. The emotions and values that drive criminal-justice treatment of youthful offenders are probably at play in efforts, or the lack thereof, to prevent youth violence.

Drawing on the work of Bronfenbrenner, Elder, and others, Elliott and Tolan describe a life course developmental framework from which to view youth violence. This framework acknowledges multiple etiologic paths to violent behavior by taking into account individual development, situational context, and the nature and timing of transitions that take place over the life course. Huesmann and Moise argue articulately and convincingly that "aggression is a relatively stable, self-perpetuating behavior that begins early in life." They briefly address the complex issue of behavioral continuity versus environmental continuity and come down on the side of behavior.

Chapin and Singer's chapter on military-combat stress and children's high-risk environments is an engaging portrait of systemic and individual means of coping with traumatic stress. Youths who join gangs adopt "colors," special language, and initiation rites, which help build group cohesion, loyalty, and a sense of being elite; the authors note that these characteristics are achieved by roughly the same means in the military. Fagan argues that gangs may have become institutionalized in the United States. He points out the redistributive function of the selling of drugs -- that is, the complicity of middle-class and upper-class society in drug markets: "Increasingly poor neighborhoods alone cannot sustain the dollar amounts and quantities that compose the drug industry." Gang membership, from this framework, can be seen as a career choice in the face of weakening social roles and diminishing job options.

Rushforth and Flannery examine the role of firearms in youth violence and conclude, among other things, that physicians and other health care professionals need to be educated about the risk associated with the access to guns by youths. The Steps to Prevent (STOP) Firearm Injury campaign and other efforts by the American Academy of Pediatrics take this view a step further; rather than simply educating pediatricians, the pediatricians, in turn, educate the parents of their patients about firearm-related injuries.

Allen and colleagues note that, regardless of whether youth violence is viewed as a criminal-justice problem or a mental health issue, violent crime is associated with noncriminal mental health problems. The sole chapter written by a physician, Tardiff, focuses on neurobiologic and pharmacologic issues in the treatment of violent youth.

Some chapters of Youth Violence are well written and fully referenced, whereas others lack appropriate citations and appear to have been written more for a lay audience. This unevenness contributes to confusion regarding who exactly the intended audience is. Although the book is part of the American Psychiatric Association's Clinical Practice series, it is, for the most part, a compilation of writings by sociologically oriented researchers, not clinical practitioners or treatment-oriented researchers. It may be most useful to students seeking an overview of general issues in youth violence.

Reviewed by Susan B. Sorenson, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

Review

"This is a timely book.... The information presented here will be helpful to both novice and experienced clinician-researchers, but it deserves to reach beyond them to a broader audience, including that of policy makers."-- "Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Amer Psychiatric Pub; 1 edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880488093
• ISBN-13: 978-0880488099
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,683,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)