Research Discussion 11- Data Analysis Spiral

Running Head: YOUTH VIOLENCE 1

YOUTH VIOLENCE 11

Youth Violence

Shakitha Reed

PRST 5300

Dr. Schmidtke

University of Memphis

November 5, 2021

Violence among teenagers is a public health issue. The use of force to damage or threaten others falls under this category. Bullying, rioting, weapons threats, and gang violence are all examples of teenage violence. Every year, thousands of young people, their families, and communities are affected by the problem. It affects people of all genders, races, nationalities, and family income levels, as well as urban, suburban, rural, and tribal communities. It is said to occur on a daily basis across the United States. Every 24 hours, roughly 15 young people are killed.

Many young people in Washington, DC, have been victims of violence or have caused bodily injury to others, resulting in death. Rather than shunning violent youngsters, society could reclaim them by engaging positively in their lives. In Washington, DC, the rate of arrests for violent crime among teenagers aged 10 to 17 was 158 per 100,000 from 2012 to 2014. Young people aged 18-24 had a 342 per 100 000 arrest rate. Adolescents and young adults have greater rates of violent crime, according to the data. In Washington, like in the rest of the country, more than three-quarters of children arrested for major violent offences are boys (Sebel, 2013).

There are various reasons for the increase in Youth violence. Many researchers tried to look at every aspect to understand and minimize the problem. The interconnectedness of adversity in infancy (ACEs) domestic violence may take many forms of physical or verbal abuse (Bennet & Joe, 2015). Additional study has indicated that certain populations, such as the elderly, have an even greater rate of ACEs—children of alcoholics, as well as minors dealing with the legal system participation for the most part. Interpersonal and psychological discomfort are also linked to community violence exposure. However, there has been relatively little study on the link between suicide and communal violence, particularly among African American and Latino youth.

A significant share of the urban population is made up of African Americans and Latinos. As a result, further study is needed, especially because teenagers in metropolitan areas are more likely to be exposed to high levels of communal violence. According to studies, self-harming and suicidal cases among African American and Latino teenagers in metropolitan areas are around two times as common as the national average (Bushman, 2016).

This shows that specific social and environmental elements unique to the urban environment may play a role in the greater occurrence of suicidal conduct among these people. To date, clinical or small community samples have been employed in investigations on community violence exposure and suicidality. There are currently no studies on urban African American and Latino teenagers that use population-based samples. As a result, the current study examines the data generated from the "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Violence Survey"; researchers looked at a ratio of the suicidal or self-harming rate among the Latino of African-American youths in experimental samples.

Early childhood violence based on the violence from their homes plays a very important role in youth violence. The harmful impacts of domestic violence on children are divided into two categories, "behavioral and emotional functioning, and cognitive functioning and attitudes" based on the studies of kids that have experienced domestic violence, on the other hand, compared to children who had not been domestic abuse exposed. People exhibited more externalized (aggressive) and internalized (fear, inhibition) behaviors. The various tests that were created were not designed to check the behavior or changes in behavior of children or rather to assess children's behavioral and emotional disorders as a result of exposure to domestic violence was used in many of the existing studies. Boys who had been exposed to parental violence showed more positive attitudes toward violence than both girls and boys who had not been exposing according to Kimball's study (2016) (Kimball, 2016).

Early childhood violence, along with community violence, impacts children's or youth exposure to violence and adapt a similar behavior in their adolescence or youth. Another aspect of childhood violence is intimate partner violence (IPV). It is described as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse between partners that is threatened, attempted, or completed. According to surveys from throughout the world, approximately between 10 to 69 % of the women have had domestic violence at the hand of their spouse, explaining the higher ratio of IPV. Women are not the only victims of IPV in these settings, but their kids are also a part of this IPV abuse. The overarching purpose of this study is also to look at youth abuse from the angle of IPV. The impact IPV has on kids may lead to youth violence as it affects their mental and psychological health to a very significant level. Physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse are all examples of direct victimization of children. Various studies have found that the offspring of female IPV victims are regularly subjected to psychological, physical, and sexual violence. According to this research, approximately 20% to 70% of youngsters may be direct victims of criminals' hostility. Indirect victimization is the second type of victimization, which occurs when children see violence against their moms. The IPV situations that happen at home are eye-witnessed by approximately 90% of the children, according to research. Learning violent behavior is becoming more widely recognized as one of the difficulties produced by being a victim of IPV since it indicates, in some situations, two-fold victimization of the mothers. As a result of IPV, along with the women, children also establish behavioral issues, mainly having the aggressiveness, high temperament, and extreme behaviors that they conduct toward classmates and moms. In terms of child-to-parent violence, new research with teenagers reveals that exposure to domestic violence. However, no study has yet linked the IPV and youth violence being conducted against the affected kid's mother but is kept in consideration based on the perspectives of mothers who have had IPV encounters. The interviewing of the mothers, in this case, would help researcher’s better grasp the relationship between family violence and the development of violent behavior toward mothers. A research study was done regarding the IVP, and its effect on children was studied by Izaguirre & Calvete (2015); in this study, around 30 mothers were interviewed having children at least 18 years and had experienced IVP. Based on the interviews, there were significant differences in the behavior, aggression, and attitude towards life as compared to the adolescents or kids who have not experienced IVP. They had very high aggression behavior and faced significant issues in their school life. There were five main problems that were found common the children who faced IVP they were not only witnessing the violence but also were the victim of the violence, faced distress and fear at the time of the abuse, and had big psychological problems that affected their life significantly (Izaguirre & Calvete, 2015; Lambella & Masten, 2017). The research that is conducted on IVP has little insight into the IVP encounters eye-witnessed by children in the vicinity of their homes and the effect it has on their emotional and psychological well-being, and the impact that it has on their lives. It is essential to understand the behavior of kids due to violence at home or on their mothers under IPV. The findings of Izaguirre and Calvete in their study demonstrate that it does have an effect on the aggressive behavior of some kids directed to their mother, but the significance of the study is limited due to a small number of interviews group. Some mothers experienced aggressive behavior directed to them because of eye witnessing IPV, but some mothers reported very gentle behavior.

Mothers also frequently report that their children experience some major difficulties, e.g., "psychological, social, and academic issues." Their acquisition of hostile behavior is notable since their behavior is not only directed at home but also towards their classmates, friends, or colleagues but majorly towards their mother. Owing to this kind of experience, many youngsters who have been exposed to IPV appear to adopt roles that are similar to those of young adults.

In another study, children with aggressive behavior against people and life had an overlap of another component along the IVP. It was seen that along with IVP, there was overlap found, including the tolerance of communality towards public and domestic violence in different types of family relations. The study of common elements accepts domestic violence as a norm, but there are other domains of family violence research that are not covered extensively by the researchers and have insufficient integration of their distinct literature. The widespread acceptability of family violence, as seen by different research studies, helps to build a link between two kinds of violence that are inextricably linked, recognizing the overlap between IPV and CA (Gracia et al., 2020). Intimate partner and parent-child relationships have a link to attitudes toward violence, which are both risk factors for IPV and CA. The general acceptability of family violence might be considered as a risk factor for many types of family violence in this perspective.

In general, poor education and low parental income have been associated with greater levels of teenage violence in Washington, DC. Less violence is linked to higher academic attainment and youth success. Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native children ages 10-17 have a higher rate of violent crime arrests than white teenagers, according to the 2014 Washington State Healthy Youth Survey. At equal percentages, students of various ethnicities were reported fighting and carrying firearms at school. Family characteristics connected to race, such as a history of parental incarceration and poor income, were shown to be associated with inequalities between these minority groups and whites. The development of collective efficacy, which occurs when neighbors trust one another and are prepared to intervene to solve local problems, can help communities avoid violence. Crime and violence are low in communities with high collective efficacy, independent of sociodemographic variables or the amount of disorder present. Collective efficacy is one theory that can aid with this method. This theory's key component is social cohesiveness, which involves trusted connections and a shared sense of values or standards when it comes to intervening in neighborhood issues. Along with collective efficacy, social cohesion can also help in tackling the problem and building a safer community. But the use of these interventions in a community proved to build a relationship of trust and mutual collaboration in the community along with the problem of intervening in each other problems, which is seen as a step back of this intervention (Ohmer, 2016). Due to an increase in the aggressive behaviors directed to either the spouse or child in the vicinity of home or the community, the child behavior in early childhood compared to later age groups is an ideal time to begin preventative initiatives. Specific therapy for children and in the nursery having poor emotional behavior as compared to other children should be investigated further in order to avoid future violent conduct, especially among children living in low-income metropolitan settings. Improvements in problem behavior and emotion regulation in young children have been linked to the Thinking Strategies curriculum and the Family Check-Up. Increased positive parenting and decreased mother sadness typically mediate the association between the proposed intervention and fewer behavioral problems in children. (Sitnick et al., 2017).

Along with these interventions, various programs and seminars can be arranged to work on youth violence as there has been an increasing ratio of youth violence in Washington DC. Along with the above-mentioned strategies, the aid of the government and private institutes can be utilized to bring the violence among youth to the baseline. As it is reported, solely the government programs have not been able to bring out the positive result in Washington DC regarding this problem (Roth, 2016). The task of providing effective intervention to respond to and alleviate the concerns associated with high-risk adolescents and their more extensive social surroundings is not being met by governmental and volunteer initiatives in Washington, DC that serve high-risk youth. The inclination of states to continue sponsoring untrained and fragmented programs with narrow treatments geared at treating certain behaviors or issues is one of the main reasons they are missing the point. These programs fail to incorporate local and regional systemic change that supports public health-oriented, interagency, and comprehensive activities aimed at underserved settings and program and service restructuring to help the youth and community tackle the problem (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016).

In Washington State, a number of local government initiatives are aimed at assisting kids who are in danger of being exposed to violence. Among these are the Clark County Youth Program, the Bellevue Youth Link Program, and the King County Safe Place Program.

The Clark County Adolescents Program is a collection of programs aimed at preventing substance misuse, aggression, and other social skills, as well as providing chances for youth to express themselves and acquire developmental assets and protective factors. With the help of devoted staff and community members, the program aims to meet the needs of Clark County adolescents and their families. This program assists teenagers who are dealing with emotional and behavioral issues. Trauma, anxiety, despair, substance abuse, and resistance are all examples of mental health issues. The program serves teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 who require therapeutic support in dealing with personal issues. It is one of the greatest programs for teenagers seeking a loving environment in which to accept positive change while preserving academic achievement and improving interpersonal connections. The change in the youth who participate in this program is exciting, engaging, and long-lasting, with significant improvement.

Bellevue Youth Link is a youth-at-risk organization that provides services to young people aged 11 to 18, allowing them to plan and manage important community initiatives. Several children in the neighborhood have been involved in the program, which has provided them with the opportunity to make a difference in their lives. The Youth Link Board works to promote diversity, equity, and togetherness among Bellevue high school students, as well as to reflect the youth's voice in community leadership. It serves as a catalyst for reacting to community problems and desires by including everyone. It aspires to make Bellevue a place where all kids feel included, respected, cherished and cared for. The King County Safe Program is a partnership between Seattle's Young Care and East and North King County's youth allies. The program helps youngsters in crisis and, in the process, creates a safety net for them. A safe space is an outreach program designed to provide immediate protection and assistance to kids ages 11 to 17 who are experiencing a crisis. Local organizations and companies participate in safe place sites, which connect teenagers and youth in distress to community emergency shelters or support. School and church may both serve as safe-havens. Kids Emergency Teen Shelter Program allies for boys and girls ages 11-17, Street outreach program, and Youth Haven for at-risk youths aged 15-22 collaborate with these locations. These programs, along with a number of others in Washington, DC, have made a difference in the lives of young people via the services they provide (Yohalem, & Wilson-Ahlstrom, 2010; Frankford, 2007). They all share the goal of involving kids in activities that promote positive conduct, hence reducing their exposure to violence in Washington.

Across Washington, the number of adolescents exposed to violence is quite high. When compared to those from high-income homes, those from low-income families are at a higher risk of violence. In comparison to whites, blacks, Indian Americans, and Alaska natives are the most vulnerable. Several groups provide support services to help youngsters avoid being involved in violence. These initiatives have made major efforts to assist high-risk adolescents in Washington, DC, in conjunction with governmental and non-profit groups, but they are failing to meet the task of providing effective intervention to address and alleviate the concerns of high-risk kids and their broader social environments. State policymakers and funding organizations should rethink sponsoring qualified and non-fragment programs with larger interventions that target a wide range of juvenile behaviors and problems. Based on prior research, this paper seeks to discriminate between risk variables for teen violent and nonviolent conduct in a high-risk group by looking at antecedents of teenage violence throughout early infancy from multiple domains and informants in an at-risk sample. Early childhood prevention programs that focus on parenting and emotional control in children appear to have the ability to lower future violent crime rates. Early childhood prevention programs that specifically target improving the parent's behavior towards their children and, in general, the behavior of any adult to kids should be highlighted as it is considered one of the main concerns of this problem. Regulating parents' behavior and their behavior with their spouse should be regulated using various interventions or programs as it can reduce future crimes significantly. Another main aspect of limiting future crimes is directing the programs, especially to low-income families or communities, and towards toddlers who exhibit behavioral issues. The early childhood preventive programs which aid in regulating emotional behavior along with the improvements in parenting can contribute to the limited future crimes and improve lives.

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