This book places youth violence within a Routine Activity Ecological Framework. Youth violence, specifically youth exposure to community violence and youth perpetration of violent behaviors, occur within various contexts. Ahlin and Antunes situate their discussion of youth violence within an ecological framework, identifying how it is nested within four mesosystem layers: community, family, peers and schools, and youth characteristics. Contextualized using an ecological framework, the Routine Activity Theory and Lifestyles perspective (RAT/LS) are well suited to guide an examination of youth violence risk and protective factors across the four layers. Drawing on scholarship that explores predictors and consequences of youth violence, the authors apply RAT/LS theory to explain how community, family, peers, schools, and youth characteristics influence youth behavior. Each layer of the ecological framework unfolds to reveal the latest scholarship and contextualizes how concepts of RAT/LS, specifically the motivated offender, target suitability, and guardianship, can be applied at each level. This book also highlights the mechanisms and processes that contribute to youth exposure to and involvement in violence by exploring factors examined in the literature as protective and risk factors of youth violence. Youth violence occurs in context, and, as such, the understanding of multilevel predictors and preventive measures against it can be situated within an RAT/LS ecological framework. This work links theory to extant research. Ahlin and Antunes demonstrate how knowledge of youth violence can be used to develop a robust theoretical foundation that can inform policy to improve neighborhoods and youth experiences within their communities, families, and peers and within their schools while acknowledging the importance of individual characteristics. This monograph is essential reading for those interested in youth violence, juvenile delinquency, and juvenile justice research and anyone dedicated to preventing crime among youths.

On juvenile delinquency in America

Provides an introduction to the study of gangs how we define them, what we know and not know about gangs. This title offers both a domestic and international view of processes of delinquency and gang formation and identity. It is suitable for criminal justice, sociology and social work, parole practitioners, and public defenders.

This is a resource for dealing with both perpetrators and victims of violence and understanding the risk factors facing youth. Presenting an assessment of effects of exposure to violence and the continuity of aggression from early childhood to adulthood, it outlines an integration strategy for public policy towards prevention and treatment.

This book identifies and discusses types of youth violence in American society today. Causes of youth violence are discussed and linked to prevention and treatment programs and strategies to assess the likelihood of aggression or violence in children and youths are identified. Other topics covered include violence among girls, gang and drug-related violence, antibullying programs and spatial mapping strategies to reduce violence in schools.

Measuring the social and economic costs of violence can be difficult, and most estimates only consider direct economic effects, such as productivity loss or the use of health care services. Communities and societies feel the effects of violence through loss of social cohesion, financial divestment, and the increased burden on the healthcare and justice systems. Initial estimates show that early violence prevention intervention has economic benefits. The IOM Forum on Global Violence Prevention held a workshop to examine the successes and challenges of calculating direct and indirect costs of violence, as well as the potential cost-effectiveness of intervention.

Edited by four leading violence researchers, this book takes a systemic view, offering a critical appraisal of research and theory that focuses on violence in youth, families, and communities.

From concerns about juveniles' incorrigibility at the turn of the century to school violence in the 1990s, adults have attempted to understand, control, and prevent juvenile violence. Yet, juvenile violence takes many forms, including both violence by juveniles and violence against juveniles, and has various causes and consequences. Since juvenile violence cannot be understood without examining the social context of a given time, this comprehensive encyclopedia provides a historical overview of many significant time periods and offers entries about many types of juvenile violence. It covers competing theories of youth violence; issues such as gender, race, and educational status; and the criminal justice system's methods for dealing with both victims and offenders over time. Additionally, several topics that receive little attention in traditional volumes about juvenile violence, such as hazing, systemic violence in schools, peaceable schools, are covered in these pages. Each entry utilizes current sources, making the book as up-to-date as possible. The front and back matter offer important information, including a chronological list of significant events related to juvenile violence and book and Web resources. Authors represent many different fields, including Sociology, Psychology, Education, History, Social Work, Political Science, Policing, and English. This offers readers a diversity of perspectives and information from a variety of sources. Confronting a difficult and often-misunderstood subject, this encyclopedia is essential to a better understanding of juvenile violence.

Drawing on one of the most comprehensive and representative studies of school violence ever conducted, Benbenishty and Astor explore and differentiate the many manifestations of victimization in schools, providing a new model for understanding school violence in context. The authors make striking use of the geopolitical climate of the Middle East to model school violence in terms of its context within as well as outside of the school site. This pioneering new work is unique in that it uses empirical data to show which variables and factors are similar across different cultures and which variables appear unique to different cultures. This empirical contrast of universal with culturally specific patterns is sorely needed in the school violence literature. The authors' innovative research maps the contours of verbal, social, physical, and sexual victimization and weapons possession, as well as staff-initiated violence against students, presenting some startling findings along the way. When comparing schools in Israel with schools in California, the authors demonstrate for the first time that for most violent events the patterns of violent behaviors have the same relationship for different age groups, genders, and nations. Conversely, they highlight specific kinds of violence that are strongly influenced by culture. They reveal, for example, how Arab boys encounter much more boy-to-boy sexual harassment than their Jewish peers, and that teacher-initiated victimization of students constitutes a significant and often overlooked type of school violence, especially among certain cultural groups. Crucially, the authors expand the paradigm of understanding school violence to encompass the intersection of cultural, ethnic, neighborhood, and family characteristics with intra-school factors such as teacher-student dynamics, anti-violence policies, student participation, grade level, and religious and gender divisions. It is only by understanding the multiple contexts of school violence, they argue, that truly effective prevention programs, interventions, research agendas, and policies can be implemented. In an age of heightened concern over school security, this study has enormous implications for school violence theory, research, and policy throughout the world. The patterns that emerge from the authors' analysis form a blueprint for the research agenda needed to address new and exciting theoretical and practical questions regarding the intersections of context and school victimization. The unique perspective on school violence will undoubtedly strike a chord with all readers, informing scholars and students across the fields of social work, psychology, education, sociology, public health, and peace/conflict studies. Its clearly written and accessible style will appeal to teachers, principals, policy makers and parents interested in the authors' practical discussion of policy and intervention implications, making this an invaluable tool for understanding, preventing, and handling violence in schools throughout the world.