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Essay on Youth Violence
Yet adolescent violence has been throughout the 1990s a special focus of concern in American society and government. Commentators and legislators worry about adolescent violence (and not the violence of older offenders) because it is believed that youth violence, alone, is increasing and is likely to continue increasing. Adolescent violence is considered a separate problem from other forms of youth crime because of the larger harm that violent acts cause and because serious violence by young offenders in the 1990s is believed to be an indication that American cities are witnessing the emergence of a more dangerous breed of juvenile offender, whose vicious behavior is unprecedented and whose numbers can only grow in the first decade of the next century .
In both the scientific and popular literatures, the related concepts of risk, protection, and resilience have emerged as useful constructs for conceptualizing the development of social and health problems, particularly the problems confronting children and their families. When researchers and practitioners use these terms, they invoke a promising, new way to understand mental health disorders and social problems ranging from poor school achievement to youth violence. A “risk and resilience” orientation—as it is sometimes called—is based on the idea that adaptational behavior emerges from the interplay of (a) combinations of factors predictive of negative developmental outcomes (risk factors) and (b) combinations of counteracting factors that reduce or ameliorate risk.
Usually referred to as protective factors (and sometimes referred to as assets or strengths), these counterbalancing factors provide a degree of protection in the presence of risk. Moreover, they lead—in some children—to successful coping and adaptation despite exposure to high levels of adversity. Successfully prevailing over adversity is called resilience.Investigations into the mechanisms by which individuals and systems respond adaptively to stress, adversity, or trauma provide important new information for assessment and for the conceptualization......
