The Future of Youth Violence Prevention: A Mixtape for Practice, Policy, and Research focuses on innovative approaches to youth violence prevention that utilize consistent principles found within existing best practices but are dynamic and adaptable across settings—and the sociohistorical and cultural realities of those settings. This book features scholars anchored in applied practices who can ground these forward-thinking strategies in the substantive base of research and theory that has produced successful interventions across multiple disciplines. The scholarship and cutting-edge thinking assembled in this volume could produce new-era youth violence prevention coordinators prepared to serve in any setting—including community outreach programs, therapeutic group homes, day reporting centers, juvenile probation offices, schools, or clinics. These coordinators will be able to cocreate intervention techniques using core prevention elements drawing from a range of ideas and a multitude of disciplines while embracing the assets and resources already in place.

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Each year, gun violence kills approximately 2,700 and injures approximately 14,500 children in the U.S.; the overwhelming majority of child gun deaths are among teenagers who die by homicide or suicide. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black teens. A recent spate of high-profile tragedies involving children, such as the Newtown mass shooting in 2012 and the Parkland mass shooting in 2018, have reinvigorated a national debate about the role of guns in our private and public spaces. Physicians, and in particular pediatricians, have become increasingly vocal about the need to address the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. This book serves as an in-depth, comprehensive guide to adolescent gun violence prevention. It describes the epidemiology of teen gun violence in the U.S. by focusing on the parallel epidemics that claim the most lives: gun suicide among rural white males, and gun homicide among urban Black males. It offers in-depth reviews of key concepts that are crucial to reaching a meaningful understanding of gun violence. The text also addresses specific methods of intervention at various levels of society, from the individual; to the local community; and finally to the entire nation. This first of its kind book is a valuable reference for physicians, public health scientists, policy-makers, gun reform advocates, and anyone interested in working towards a safer future for young people.

"Groundbreaking." ―Rachel Louise Snyder, bestselling author of No Visible Bruises An examination of the phenomenon of mass shootings in America and an urgent call to implement evidence-based strategies to stop these tragedies Winner of the 2022 Minnesota Book Award Using data from the writers’ groundbreaking research on mass shooters, including first-person accounts from the perpetrators themselves, The Violence Project charts new pathways to prevention and innovative ways to stop the social contagion of violence. Frustrated by reactionary policy conversations that never seemed to convert into meaningful action, special investigator and psychologist Jill Peterson and sociologist James Densley built The Violence Project, the first comprehensive database of mass shooters. Their goal was to establish the root causes of mass shootings and figure out how to stop them by examining hundreds of data points in the life histories of more than 170 mass shooters—from their childhood and adolescence to their mental health and motives. They’ve also interviewed the living perpetrators of mass shootings and people who knew them, shooting survivors, victims’ families, first responders, and leading experts to gain a comprehensive firsthand understanding of the real stories behind them, rather than the sensationalized media narratives that too often prevail. For the first time, instead of offering thoughts and prayers for the victims of these crimes, Peterson and Densley share their data-driven solutions for exactly what we must do, at the individual level, in our communities, and as a country, to put an end to these tragedies that have defined our modern era.

Hailed as a means to transform cultural norms and change lives, violence prevention programs signal a slow-rolling policy revolution that has reached nearly two-thirds of young people in the United States today. Max A. Greenberg takes us inside the booming market for programming and onto the asphalt campuses of Los Angeles where these programs are implemented, many just one hour a week for 12 weeks. He spotlights how these ephemeral programs, built on troves of risk data, are disconnected from the lived experiences of the young people they were created to support. Going beyond the narrow stories told about at-risk youth through data and in policy, Greenberg sketches a vivid portrait of young men and women coming of age and forming relationships in a world of abiding harm and fleeting, fragmented support. At the same time, Greenberg maps the minefield of historical and structural inequalities that program facilitators must navigate to build meaningful connections with the youth they serve. Taken together, these programs shape the stories and politics of a generation and reveal how social policy can go wrong when it ignores the lives of young people.

This document presents witness testimonies and prepared statements from the Senate hearing on youth violence, strategies for its prevention, and the appropriate role of the federal government. The hearing stresses the need for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach for youth violence prevention strategies and more coordination by the federal government. Opening statements are included by Senators Glenn and Akaka. Witnesses providing testimony include: (1) Louis Stokes, Representative from Ohio; (2) Gregory McDonald, U.S. General Accounting Office; (3) Carol Beck, high school principal; (4) Marc Wilkins, Police Chief's Youth Task Force, Washington, D.C.; (5) Curtis Artis, Police Chief's Youth Task Force, Washington, D.C.; (6) Leonard Eron, University of Illinois at Chicago and American Psychological Association on Violence and Youth; (7) Adele Harrell, The Urban Institute, Washikngton, D.C.; (8) Donald Schwarz, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; (9) Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Harvard University; (10) Gail Breakey, Hawaii Family Stress Center; (11) Ray Miller, Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Commission on Minority Health; (12) Ronald Slaby, Education Development Center, Newton, Massachusetts and Harvard University; and (13) Renee Wilson-Brewer, Education Development Center, Newton, Massachusetts. Prepared statements of the witnesses; a prepared statement of Chukwudi Onwuachi-Saunders, Centers for Disease Control; relevant articles from the "New York Times"; and charts submitted from the Centers for Disease Control are appended. (NB)

On youth violence and how to reduce it

This book examines the gun-related policy responses to three school shooting incidents in the United States. Gun violence prevention activists and others involved in policy making were interviewed for the book, and news media articles and policy documents were critically assessed. As a result, interpretations of the Second Amendment are shown to affect the acceptability of certain gun restrictions. News media content and policy documents, coupled with the thoughts of activists, also give an indication of why certain policy measures passed and others failed at the time of each of the case studies. This book should be of interest to social policy, politics, criminology and sociology students and academics, as well as those with a general interest in the topic.