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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this article by Coughlin was to discuss issues regarding youth violence that arose from a meeting of a panel of psychologists.
METHODOLOGY:
The author employed a non-experimental design to examine some of the issues about violence and America's young that were raised by a report of a panel of psychologists from the Commission on Violence and Youth of the American Psychological Association.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The draft of the Commission's report centered upon the need for further research to be conducted into the prevention of violent behavior, and called for researchers to also study victims of violence and bystanders, in order to understand more fully individual behavior in a larger social and cultural context. The National Institute of Mental Health has encouraged research in four areas: family violence, youth violence, sex offenses and victims. Research in the field of interpersonal violence by both national councils and private individuals has increased in recent years, and Congress has become more interested in the issue of violence in America. The Centers for Disease Control recently declared that violence had reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with the odds for dying a violent death standing at 1 in 496 for white females, 1 in 205 for white males, 1 in 117 for black females, and 1 in 27 for black males. It was due to this type of statistic that the Association's Commission on Violence and Youth was established in 1991. The focus of the Commission was directed at today's youth, as this is the group that is at greatest risk of violence, and because attitudes that can lead to violence are often established early in life. Sitting on the 12-member panel were one lawyer, one law-enforcement official and ten research psychologists, whose report summarized theories of violence and aggression that have been developed over the last fifty years. In more recent years, the emphasis of psychological research has turned to the issue of prevention and intervention, and the notion that violent behavior is learned from violence in the family or in the surrounding community. Another of the primary methods for this modeling behavior has been shown to be television, with a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that frequent viewing of violence on television can lead to aggression on the part of the viewer. The report also examines research that has shown that gang activities can also foster violence, that has demonstrated how violence can affect vulnerable groups such as minorities, females and homosexuals, and that has linked guns and youth and violence in a lethal connection. The report went on to identify areas of research that have yet to be fully explored - the interaction of social and cultural factors, such as poverty and unemployment, with individual behavior; the use of samples from minority groups and inner cities instead of the white, middle class college samples that are often used; and the systematic study of the prevention of and the intervention in violence. Few researchers have undertaken evaluations of prevention and intervention programs, as many obstacles, such as a lack of detailed school records and the lack of prestige involved in such research, hampering research efforts. The Commission has yet to release any recommendations regarding public policies that address the issue of violence prevention.
EVALUATION:
The author presents an interesting, although extremely brief, examination of the findings of the Commission on Violence and Youth. However, the brevity of the discussion, whilst covering a wide range of topics that were included in the panel's deliberation, does little to provide the reader with anything more then the smallest glimpse of the Commission's findings. A more thorough exploration of these findings would have been helpful, as would have reference to the location of the source of the paper - information regarding access to the Commission's own report of their findings. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) |