Stories of violence by and against youth explode from the news like gunshots from a passing car. It would seem that America is under attack by armed teenagers. During the early 1980s, about a thousand murders were committed by teens each year in the United States (Eisenman). By the middle of the 1990s, that had grown to over three thousand per year, or almost 10 percent of all murders (Eisenman). Numbers like that make it sound like teen violence is a growing epidemic, an impression that is proven to be true by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, which now identify teen violence as a major public health problem.

Talking about teen violence in terms of murder is the clear thing to do because of the dramatic certainty and loss that death brings, but the epidemic—if that is actually what it is—includes much more than murder. The statistics for armed robbery, assault, rape, and carjackings by juveniles in the United States are higher than in any other country in the world (Eisenman). The teenage perpetrators and victims come from every walk of life and every ethnic background. People of all ages are shocked, saddened, and frightened by this news, but no one is more immediately affected by the epidemic of teen violence than teenagers themselves.

Violence is any physical conduct that causes injury or harm to another person (Webster). Teen violence means that the victim, the perpetrator, or both are between twelve and twenty years old (Eisenman). Teen violence includes murder, shooting, stabbing, beating, rape, robbery, and even simply threatening someone with physical harm (Eisenman). All are against the law. The terms teen, youth, and juvenile are used when discussing violence by and against young people. A teen is a person between thirteen and twenty years old (Webster). Youth is a more general term applied to individuals between ages twelve and twenty-four (Webster). Juvenile has a precise meaning, especially to police and judges, since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officially defines juvenile crime as illegal acts committed by persons ages ten through seventeen (Eisenman).

The extent of teen violence seems great, yet there are rays of hope. Figures released by the FBI at the end of 1996 showed that in 1995, violent crime rates among juveniles dropped for the first time in seven years (Fenwick). Overall, violent crime was down 4 percent for teens under age seventeen, 7 percent among kids age ten to fourteen (Fenwick). Juvenile arrests for murder also fell, 14 percent less than 1994 and 23 percent less than 1993 (Fenwick). Furthermore, rape arrests in teens dropped 4 percent, robbery arrests dropped 1 percent, and aggravated assault arrests dropped a small but effective 2 percent (Fenwick).

“Report finds surge in homicidal teens,” shrieks a 1992 headline in the Chicago Tribune (Klein). “Big Shots: An Inside Look at the Deadly Love Affair between America’s Kids and Their Guns” reads a Time magazine cover story in August 1993 (Klein). “Armed Without a Conscience: Handguns Fuel Teen Violence” frets the bold writing in a 1996 series on juvenile crime in the San Diego Union-Tribune (Klein). For years, newspapers, magazines, and television have flooded the public with so many stories like these that most people believe teen violence is one of America’s most serious crime problems. People find the surprising increases in deadly violence among youth more alarming than the government statistics that show that violence has increased in all other ages of the U.S. population in recent years also (Klein).

Fueling the fascination with teen violence is a host of scary statistics. For example, according to the U.S. surgeon general’s office, murder rates among American males under nineteen years old are twenty times as high as most other industrialized countries (Grinney). The average age of the perpetrators and victims of teen violence has continued to fall also (Gladwell). Violence now poisons many schools as increasing numbers of students carry guns in their backpacks (Grinney). Each day an average of fourteen American children under the age of nineteen die in homicides, suicides, or accidental shootings, and many more are injured (Gladwell).

From a high in the 1960s, violent juvenile crime rates actually dropped during the next twenty-five years (Gladwell). In 1987, according to FBI data, juveniles committed only 8.5 percent of violent crimes, down from 14 percent in the 1960s (Gladwell). Since 1987, the juvenile contribution to the country’s violent crime problem has risen steadily until the mid-1990s, when juveniles accounted for almost 13 percent of the violent crimes committed in the United States (Gitlin). According to nationwide statistics collected by the FBI, in the mid-1990s one out of every eight people who committed a violent crime that was later solved turned out to be a juvenile (Gladwell). Of all persons arrested for murder in the United States, 17 percent were teenagers (Gitlin).

To gain a more complete viewpoint, it is a good idea to go beyond the headlines and the obvious fact that there are more instances of serious teen violence in the 1990s than in the 1980s. Between 1974 and 1983, all violent crime reported to the police in the United States increased by 30 percent (Gladwell). The FBI attributes that increase entirely to adults since during that period the numbers of juvenile violent offenses per year remained unchanged (Gitlin). During the next ten-year period, 1983 to 1992, violent crime increased 54 percent. This time adults were responsible for only 81 percent of the increase. Juvenile crime was up, accounting for 19 percent of the total violent crime percentage (Gitlin). Statistics such as numbers, polls, and surveys are valuable tools in any effort to understand what is really happening. It is also true that statistics can be partially incorrect for reasons like not having a neutral viewpoint or discrimination. While looking at these surprising numbers- you have to keep this in mind.

The figures for juvenile violent crimes other than murder have also been climbing. From 1985 to 1994, the number of all violent crimes handled by juvenile courts doubled (Morris).When the FBI released its crime figures in 1996 for the year before, a sigh of relief could be heard around the country when the number that had doubled seemingly disappeared over the course of a year (Morris). Until the 1980s, male juveniles accounted for more than 90 percent of juvenile violent crime arrests but starting about 1985 that began to change (Simonsen). By 1994, males were committing less crimes and the female crime rate was on the rise. Just as the male percentage, the female percentage reached it’s peaked and headed to a steady decline in 1995 (Simonsen).

Teen violence is common right where young people live, particularly in the nation’s troubled urban areas (Terrell). City school grounds are a frequent site of teen violence. As an indicator of how big the problem is, the security personnel for New York City schools make up half of the faculty and staff not accounted for (Simonsen). The other place where teen violence is especially likely to occur is inside the home. Statistics confirm that violence like spouse abuse, child abuse, and beatings all start their course in a child’s home, then spreads abroad (Simonsen).

Most of the experts who have studied teen violence agree that the violent acts committed by teenagers— assaults, shootings, armed robberies, rapes—cannot all be explained by a single reason (Terrell). Reporting that a violent young person is bad, irresponsible, lazy, or immoral gives little focus to the variety of reasons and influences behind the behavior. To begin to understand what is most likely to make a teenager capable of brutality and what conditions are most likely to trigger juvenile violence, it is necessary to look deeper into the lives of violent teens, the society that surrounds them, and the statistics of their crimes (Terrell). Even with all the statistics and studies of teen violence, experts disagree on some of the fundamental concepts about the causes of teen violence (Terrell). One of the longest lasting disagreements surrounds what is called the “nature versus nurture” controversy (Terrell). In this sense, “nature” refers to the idea that some people are naturally violent because of irresistible biological compulsions (Terrell). In other words, according to the nature theory it is biology—primarily the genes a person has inherited—that makes some teens behave violently (Terrell). “Nurture”, on the other hand, refers to the ways people learn to behave violently as a result of their upbringing and surroundings (Terrell). Experiencing or witnessing parental violence, living in a violent neighborhood, watching violent movies and many other environmental influences have been suggested as factors that nurture violence in teens (Terrell). Is there such a creature as a born criminal (Miranda)? A bout 50 years ago, a popular theory existed that proposed some people were not only born with criminal traits, but also that these people could actually be identified by physical characteristics like sloping foreheads and massive jaws (Miranda). Over time, science has found very little proof that criminals can be recognized by their appearance, and this theory has fallen by the wayside (Miranda). There remains, however, a persistent thread of evidence supporting the existence of a genetic factor that causes a tendency toward criminal behavior (Miranda). A great deal of research has focused on finding a relationship between criminal behavior and hereditary traits (Terrell).

Some of the inherited factors that have been studied are the extra Y chromosome that occasionally appears in males, various inherited learning disabilities, and certain enzyme deficiencies (Miranda). So far, behavioral scientists have found no conclusive results from all the attempts to tie juvenile violence and other criminal behavior to biology, genetics, and biochemistry (Miranda). The most that can be said is that people’s tendencies to be violent vary greatly and that these tendencies may be affected by biological causes (Miranda). There is another quite different link between the home and teen violence: drugs (Lichter). Cocaine (coke, crack, rock), amphetamines (speed, crystal, meth, crank, ecstasy, ice), and alcohol all create aggression in human behaviors (Lichter). No evidence shows that either one of these is actually the true cause of violence, so the studies on violence and biological causes and drugs are inconclusive like many others.

One major contributor to the escalation of teen violence that experts do generally agree upon is the easy availability of guns (Lichter). With so many guns currently in the hands of young people, routine fights often turn into gun battles (Lichter). Fearing for their safety, more and more teens are using guns to protect themselves in urban neighborhoods (Lichter).A growing number of the nation’s political leaders are convinced that the easy availability of handguns is the driving force behind the recent growth in teen violence (Lichter). However, this cause like many others cannot be changed through studies or research. An active approach must be made to lower the crime rates of youth and teens. Many people are able to point out the problem with teen violence, but how many are willing to help? We must find an effective approach to that helps whether it is community service, starting a youth counseling center in inner city neighborhoods, or helping a single family. Any step in the right direction help. The violence must end.