What’s the answer to youth violence?

Eric Ringham August 30, 2011, 5:00 AM Aug 30, 2011

A recent rash of killings in Minneapolis has prompted alarm, in part because some of the victims have been quite young. One fourteen-year-old was shot while playing a game of tag. Today’s Question: What’s the answer to youth violence?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

Brandy

It’s no surprise. When teens can’t find jobs they find other things to do. Our unemployment rate has been high for some, but is extrememly high for minority groups.

Work is a gift ,not only for the worker, but also for the community.

GaryF

The African American community needs to get over this “no snitching” thing and help the police find the people who are causing all this trouble.

Wade

Proper parenting!

This PC stuff (kid’s opinions matter, they have feelings, etc) makes me sick. What ever happened to respecting anyone older than you and knowing you were in for a beating when you got home if you screwed up.

Kids don’t have parents anymore, the have “friends”.

Emery

“we build jails for people we’re afraid of, and fill them with people we’re mad at”

I don’t remember hearing anything about who these individuals actually are, what they do, what their story is. Before we try to find reasons and draw conclusion, perhaps we should ask the people involved themselves – what were you thinking?

I suspect most of the people involved wouldn’t be able to verbalize to themselves what exactly they were (and are) thinking. Perhaps start there..

Kurt

This is just another unintended consequence of well-meaning but disasterous social policy. The current “entitlement” programs make marriage moot from the standpoint of financially raising children. Bad things invariably accrue.

Steve the Cynic

We have a choice. Would we rather have our tax money go for better schools and youth programs, or for more law enforcement and prisons?

Steve the Cynic

Kurt, the facts belie your thesis. There is much less street violence in places like Japan and Europe, where the “entitlement” programs are much more pervasive.

Chris Oinonen Ehren

When I worked as a playground monitor I interacted with kids from a low SES neighborhood who were sure that since they were from “the hood” that they should solve issues they had between themselves physically. I would hear stories about grown women fighting physically at family parties, and parents hitting kids, and advising kids not to take disrespect, to fight back in spite of the school’s policy of no tolerance for violence which punished both kids involved in a fight regardless of who instigated. I know I’m going to get in trouble for this viewpoint, I always do, but I believe that when we hit kids, we teach them to hit, when we teach kids to hit back, we’re teaching them to solve problems with violence, when we fight physically in front of kids we show them that this is the way of the world, and that violence is a slippery slope, that fists become shoes become sticks or rocks or knives or whatever implement comes to hand, arms race being as old as humankind, and guns are only a symptom not the disease. I know that every community has a right to their pride, to their history, to self determination and freedom from outsiders telling them how to be, but if violence is the problem, rooting out violence at its genesis is the cure. Teaching peace is the cure, and until peaceful solutions are taught our children from cradle to grave we will live in the world we make for our children.

Philip

Proverbs 23:13 “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.”

John O.

Jobs.

Larry M.

While there may be many causes, I believe the effect of poor nutrition on the developing body and mind plays a role. Having a good breakfast has been shown to increase academic performance. Other factors as proper sleep also plays a role. By the time youth turn to violence they’ve already sustained the damage and basically fallen out of the system that can lead to success.

Roger

Raise taxes on incomes over 250 k. Buy some more cops.

Alex

EDUCATION.

Letting youth realize the power they have to change their world (in positive ways).

matt

ummm….parenting? No, wait that doesn’t shift the responsibility to someone else, we might have to look in the mirror when something goes wrong rather than starting a commission or funding/defunding a program.

Amy

Education, for both the kids and the parents. While many kids that grow up in poverty end up getting into trouble, rich kids also get in trouble too, so its something that needs to be addressed across the board. Education about the consequences that kids could face and education about the opportunities to become a contributing member of society as an adult are both very important. Education for the parents on how to set good boundaries, set realistic rules and consequence would all help too.

And on that note, I think parent need to start being parents. I’m 29 years old and it seem like in just one generation, things did a complete shift from the way I was raised, which was you do something dumb and you pay the consequences, to now where its like, you do something dumb and the parents try to blame it on others or things like video games. If your kid is messing up, discipline them! I worked for a short time with adolescents who were in trouble with the law and for the most part, they were just crying out for a stable adult in their life to pay attention to them, love them and keep them on track in a positive way.

Kurt

Steve, I didn’t realize 75% of births in the black community (or any community) in Japan were out-of wedlock. My bad. Regarding Europe, they’ve had a bit of trouble in London lately. It was on the news. Last year they were buning cars in Paris. Greece is rioting because the Government is instituting austerity measures. Same in Ireland. All of these things are a result of entitlement programs run-amok.

Michael Bachmann

Private “for profit” jails are the answer. It works in other countries and other states and it can work here. As it is now, young criminals know that because we cant afford to keep them locked up, and because they know their records are expunged when they turn 18, they know full well they can get away with anything and therefor, have no fear of committing crimes. We need to enhance penalties for even minor infractions and lock them up immediately and keep every dumb thing they do ON the records for the rest of their lives.

GregX

As reported on NPR Planet Money – pre-school is where most of us pick up the social skills that allow us to work in groups and to resolve problems in a non-violent manner. See Link

Effectively – investment in youth – nutrition, education, health, especially in the first 10-12 years of life, pays dividends for the rest of their life in terms of stability, community participation and safety. In a nation that can’t afford to pay for social services – Prisons have the highest cost-per-person of any social service we deliver.
Jim Shapiro

Get kids into nature. Art and music programs. Hold parents accountable. Sterilize the irresponsible.
Steve the Cynic

I know, Kurt. Facts are irrelevant when you’re promoting an ideology. When you’re a true believer (left or right), any set of facts can be twisted to support your view.

You’re right that too much “entitlement” is bad, but that doesn’t mean less is always better. Are kids entitled to a good education in our society? The problem is not the “entitlement” mentality, it’s a lack of social cohesion– the sense that we’re all in this together. Both class-warfare socialism and laissez faire capitalism make the problem worse.
Katie

Good parenting, good role models, communitarianistic neighborhoods.
Byron Wolt

The antidotes to violence are empathy, tolerance, understanding and problem solving skills. These are concepts that can be taught and learned but require a long term approach that need to be a part of parenting and teaching on a continuing basis.

A focus on punishment as many have commented may (or may not) work to reduce violence but it is an after the violence happens reaction. There is NO short term, easy solution to preventing violence in schools (or society); however, with a long term approach focusing on education there is much that we as parents and educators in partnership can be done to reduce it.

Thanks for the question and the discussion that will follow.
taryn

We need to end poverty (and we can). If we help the parents, we help the kids.
James

Parenting.

Birth control for all on welfare.

∑

DTOM
Ann

It might be a good idea to have kids in school learn to volunteer with the disabled and elderly. It helps take away the “poor me” attitude. My parents modeled behavior that shaped my life. They read the newspaper and the Bible. They spent very little money–no expensive liquor, no expensive clothes, no vending machine products. In their spare time, they were at home, not at the bars. Loving discipline is important because it helps us to learn to control ourselves. However, it is difficult to avoid peer pressure and negative influences in the media and elsewhere.
Mary

-School funding, and maintaining frequent, monitored recess periods and physical education classes for all grades, K-12.

-School teachers, administrators, and parents being assigned mandatory reading of “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys” by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson.

-Compassionate and understanding parents and caregivers.
barracuda

prevent youth, and youth violence goes away.

you’re welcome.
Kurt

Steve, Yes, and part of that social coheshion is that everyone have some “skin in the game” and entitlements, as they are now structured, don’t require that.

My opinion on this is informed by having worked in housing projects as opposed to “facts”. The families that seemed to be on the right track usually had two parents in the home. They had a work ethic, valued education and insisted that their children were well behaved-I’d have been happy to have them as neighbors. Less common were single mothers who were nothing short of heroic in their drive to make a better life for themselves and their children. I admired them greatly. Sadly, these instances were the exception. We make it too easy to follow the path of least resistance and do so at our own peril.

Are children entitled to an education? That implies that it is a one-way street. I maintain that it is not . But, in general, I am in agreement with your sentiment.
Jason

I don’t know the “answer”, or even if there is one. I’ll take a stab at the cause though with one word: environment. And there’s a lot of factors to address that make up that one word. I’ll leave it up to the experts to define and address.

Every time a spike in violence occurs, the same response from the community happens. They have rallies chanting ‘stop the violence’. Then things cool down, nothing really changes, and the problem crops up again.

I sympathize with a community’s frustration over what to do, but these rallies seem far removed from addressing the real causes of the problem. Chanting will hardly change anything.
Steve the Cynic

Yes, Kurt. However, the conservatives’ attack on “entitlements” comes across to this observer as a rationalization for denying one’s social social responsibility.
Emlee

Children live what they learn.

If they spend their time acting violent on violent video games, seeing violence in their homes, listening for hours to music which promotes violence and sexism, seeing how adults get their way by bullying, they will act that way.

Prevent alcohol & other drug abuse, with a priority for intensive treatment of parents of young children who meet diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse.

Follow the AAP recommendations for NO TV under age 2, limited selected viewing and use of entertainment games for growing children.

Participate in ECFE / Head Start as families- both include parenting education which is nearly non-existent in any other setting (especially high school, even for teen parents). Read as families- Bedtime stories with good morals. Good physical activities with no parents abusing refs but calling for good sportsmanship. Get youth to understand before they have sex that parenting is a full-time job.

And support mentoring and after-school activities for those youth who find themselves in family settings with significant deficits.
Craig

To my recollection, many kids turned to violence when they understood they were headed for a lower relative position in life; using it to demand and receive a kind of respect. In retaliation, other kids openly relished widening the academic gap, finding conciliatory power in putting those kids another lap at every opportunity. My teenage brain certainly perceived high school as a tooth and nail battle, a zero sum game. Perhaps there is a way to let some steam out of that portion of the problem.
D Baker

I grew up in East Los Angeles back in the 70’s. From age 14 to 17 I was Guaranteed a summer job. It was called the Neighborhood Youth Corps. The program was funded through State, City and private business donations. In my case, I was assigned to a neighborhood beautification crew. If a homeowner needed yard work, landscaping, field clearing or house painting. The homeowner provided the materials and we provided the free labor. We had an adult leader who provided transportation and supervision. We had trade volunteers of the respective crafts who would teach the fundamentals of the trade. Many of the local businesses would provide seminars and host visits to their companies. We learned job reasonability, work ethics, basic trades and we learned teamwork. In 1975 the program was defunded, In 1976, kids had nothing constructive to do during summer vacation. Crime went up exponentially, kids with nothing to do needed money from somewhere. In short many of them learned the ways of the streets. Homeowners no longer felt safe in the streets, businesses complained of robbery and vandalism.

People feel that everyone should be able to pull themselves up by their boots straps, but are blind to the fact that some have no boots let alone straps to pull up. As a teenager I learned much from that program and I also learned that if you put something into a community, the members of that community will be more inclined to take better care of it. I ask myself why and the answer is clear, I had something invested in it. People scream that the streets belong to the kids, I say “what do you expect when you let tens of thousands of kids go on summer vacations with nothing constructive to do?”.
Sue de Nim

What do you mean, “the answer”? There’s more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. That kind of right-wrong, either-or, black-white thinking is a big part of what’s wrong with America these days.
Roul

As long as we have elected officials such as some in the Black Caucus ( Indiana Rep Andre Carson and DFL Representative Maxine Waters) that openly spew hate at speeches and use the race card toward anyone with different opinions; as both have done toward the Tea Party Americans this past month..we will see more flash mob violence and teen crime through gang involvement. as the perps feel entitled to act out.
Kurt

O Steve, and we were getting along so well.

Its ironic, but I feel exactly the same about liberals-that their strident advocacy of entitlement spending comes across as a rationalization for denying their own social responsibility. There was a time when the rich used to pay the vicar to be virtuous so they didn’t have to bother. The modern liberal has perfected the system: shame someone else for not paying ever higher taxes to support entitlement programs so that he(the liberal) can donn the mantle of virtue without actually having to do any of the heavy lifting. Genius.

Most conservatives, at least the ones I know, are extremely generous. Its not about greed and wanting to keep all your money. Its about the freedom to spend it on causes and in a manner that they see fit. They don’t put up yard signs that say “Happy to pay for new playground equipment, etc..” to announce to their neighbors their virtue. They just do it.
Steve the Cynic

It seems to me that you and I are 50% in agreement. We agree that knee-jerk liberals are not to be taken seriously. When you see the light and realize that knee-jerk conservatives are just as wrong, that’ll be when we can sing Kum Ba Ya together.
Steve the Cynic

Roul, are you telling us that your rants are not hate speech? (Or is it Raul, or Raoul? You seem to be having trouble keeping your aliases straight.)
John

Whats a good thesis for youth violence?