Every day, acts of violence injure more than 6000 people in the United States. Despite decades of social science arguing that joblessness among disadvantaged youth is a key cause of violent offending, programs to remedy youth unemployment do not consistently reduce delinquency. This study tests whether summer jobs, which shift focus from remediation to prevention, […]
violence
The Role of Social Support and Social Context on the Incidence of Attempted Suicide Among Adolescents Living in Extremely Impoverished Communities
The authors of a longitudinal study of African American youth living in extremely impoverished neighborhoods found that they had a nearly 36-percent risk of attempting suicide by the time they reached the age of 20. The risk of attempting suicide rose as the children entered adolescence and then remained fairly stable, peaking at age 15. […]
Suicide Trends Among Elementary School–Aged Children in the United States From 1993 to 2012
The overall suicide rate among children between the ages of five and 11 was stable during the 20 years from 1993 to 2012, but that stability obscured racial differences that show an increase in suicide among black children and a decrease among white children. For a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, researchers led by Jeffrey […]
Preventing Violence: Understanding and Addressing Determinants of Youth Violence in the United States
This research brief summarizes a review of research and evaluation studies, as well as promising and proven interventions, to identify programs, policies, and practices that can contribute to reducing high levels of violence in the United States. Contents include rates of violence in the United States and worldwide, factors consistently found associated with higher levels […]
Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected
While efforts to address the school-to-prison pipeline tend to focus on boys and young men of color, girls and young women of color also face many of the same challenges, a report from the African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies finds. The report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, […]
Safe and Successful Youth Initiative: Violence Prevention Program for Youth
Youth violence presents significant challenges across the U.S., disrupts communities and economic development, increases health care costs, and decreases property values—not to mention the human impact. In 2010, Massachusetts was the most violent state in the Northeast—the MA Public Health Council reported 1,667 homicide victims between 2001 and 2010, with nearly 40 percent of them […]