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Youth Violence:
Who's to Blame?
What's behind the frightening epidemic of youth violence? The prophet Isaiah envisioned
a time when children would oppress their elders. Are we living in those days?
by Howard Davis
In the 1960s Bill Roberts forever
abandoned youthful innocence for the killing fields of Vietnam. Not long ago something
happened to Bill that brought back the terror he felt years ago in guerrilla warfare.
His recent brush with death was not in a war in Southeast Asia. It happened in Portland,
Oregon, a prosperous city of a million and a half people. The enemy wasn't Vietnamese
guerrillas but gun-toting gang members in a school yard.
Mr. Roberts serves as principal of a school attended by my children. He is still
a soldier, but his fight is with the explosion of youth violence that began 20 years
ago in America.
With the American prison population up to 1,800,000 from 750,000 in only 10 years,
violence among young people affects every stratum of American life.
Easy solutions are hard to come by because the problem with youth violence is not
a trend fueled primarily by desperation and poverty. It is driven by powerful forces
and influences that lead some children to treat other human beings as if they are
of no more value than the electronic video-game figures they mindlessly kill off
by the hour for amusement.
With the lines between fantasy and reality confused and blurred, some American youths
have received the unmistakable message that it is entertaining to kill. The two teenaged
gunmen who killed and maimed 35 students and teachers at Colorado's Columbine High
School in May laughed as they roamed the classrooms and hallways and gunned down
their victims.
Does our culture teach children that killing people is not a big deal? Violent movies,
video and computer games, and many television shows certainly send that message.
Strangely, many violent teenagers are possessed of a sense of invincibility. Not
only do they evince no fear of God, they have little fear or understanding that they
could be killed as easily as the fictional characters on a video-game screen.
Explosive Violence
After a 15-year-old boy confessed to the May 1998 shooting of 22 students and
his parents in Springfield, Oregon, commentators pointed out that explosive violence
had crept from the poor, inner-city communities of the 1980s and early '90s onto
the manicured lawns of suburbia.
Not only is homicide one of the greatest risks to our youngsters, says the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control in Atlanta, it has progressively permeated the national landscape.
The epidemic of gun violence began to peak among youth in the late 1980s, ravaging
a predominately poor minority generation of inner-city residents, according to James
Garbarino, director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University.
National Council on Crime and Delinquency president Barry Krisberg notes a difference
in today's profile of youth violence. Recent mass-murder attempts and episodes "had
nothing to do with drugs or guns,î he said. ìSome were from affluent communities
and intact families."
In the last six years 11 of 12 mass shootings with multiple victims took place in
cities with populations under 80,000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
report nine of these were municipalities with a smaller population than 52,000.
Initial studies indicate a shift in violent youth behavior out of the low socioeconomic
stereotype. Harvard School of Public Health professor Deborah Prothrow-Stith characterizes
the movement of youth violence from poor urban communities to the rest of the population
and regions as an effect similar to any other epidemic. "It's the second wave,î
she said. ìFirst (it strikes) the most vulnerable community, and then it spreads."
Copy acts have also proliferated. In one study 25 percent of young violent felons
said they got the specific idea for their violent activity directly from television.
"I can do that" is the remark attributed to the 15-year-old Oregon shooter
in a conversation two months earlier to his school-bus driver when he heard about
the school massacre by two youths in Paducah, Kentucky.
Murders committed by teens ages 14 to 17 tripled between 1976 and 1993, then dropped
somewhat, according to University of Oregon sociology department chairman Robert
O'Brien. However, observers point out that upward trends in youth violence may be
masked somewhat by imprisonment, aggressive policing and a dynamic national economy.
A Childhood Jungle
Youth violence is, at its core, an outgrowth of an American crisis of values.
Successful child-raising requires values flowing from a firm commitment to children--a
commitment that requires time, attention and resources. In their absence, children
grow up in a veritable jungle.
It doesn't have to be so.
Consistent, loving guidance of children works. Demonstrating concern works. These
parental commitments help stop violence by preventing it. They require a child-centered
approach that touches the spirit of the child rather than a manipulation of material
circumstances masquerading as attention.
A central message of Jesus Christ regarding children is that they are to be loved
because "of such is the Kingdom of God." He showed that true love works.
The explosion of youth violence is a clear warning that time is running out to begin
practicing Christ's approach before it's too late.
Most youthful violence emanates from environments in which brutal adult behavior
is modeled and acted out in what National Council on Crime and Delinquency president
Krisberg calls a "nihilistic culture that does not promote community and social
values.î
Not only are right values ignored, but wrong values are often celebrated. ìGo to
the movies and listen to the music,î says Mr. Krisberg. ìIt's violent, it has misogynist
content. There's gross materialism and no ennobling values celebrated."
A New Battleground
The war of youth violence is waged in many communities. On Mr. Roberts' Portland
school ground, a battle almost erupted because a 12-year-old student had grabbed
a basketball away from a gang member.
A few days later school was just letting out when the gang members arrived with revolvers
under their coats and dozens of umbrellas tipped with blades. They were ready for
the boy.
What surprised Mr. Roberts and led him to instinctively sense he might witness a
murder was the bizarre willingness of the 12-year-old with no violent history to
take on the gang single-handedly.
As the boy raced out the front door toward the gang, Mr. Roberts grabbed him, handing
him over to two assistants who restrained him in Mr. Roberts' office while Mr. Roberts
confronted the gang.
In schools across the nation, principals experience such potentially deadly conflicts.
Although this situation passed without harm, Mr. Roberts says he feels sure he will
see similar problems again. He fears that America, with its random, bloody explosions
of violence, is in some ways repeating the frightening guerrilla warfare of Vietnam.
The tentacles of youth violence have traveled across the Atlantic and the Pacific
into most other parts of the Western World. Consider the United Kingdom. In some
British schools youth violence and disrespect for authority are out of control. An
East Anglian instructor wrote an article, ìHow We Teachers Have Lost Control of the
Classroomî (Sunday Telegraph) in which he said only one goal matters: ìreducing
violence in schools.î
Need for Spiritually Motivated Love
Former U.S. Army general Colin Powell, whose leadership helped the American military
and its allies emerge victorious in 1991's Operation Desert Storm, says the problem
of troubled youth is the greatest threat to the future of the United States.
Youth violence has its roots in a parental culture that has spiritually abandoned
them. More money, expensive schools and government programs run by well-meaning bureaucrats
cannot substitute for parental love. Western nations so often look to institutional
programs for salvation from social crises, but this is one money can't buy.
The 15 million children living in poverty are not alone in a landscape of emotional,
interpersonal and spiritual impoverishment. Many children in prosperous nations grow
up without enriching values conveyed by the intimacy of sacrificial parental love.
Many of them have no concept of the sanctity of life, even their own. ìThis is the
way we want to go out,î read the suicide note from Columbine High School gunmen Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold, who between them killed 13 people in a rampage of bullets
and homemade bombs before they turned their guns on themselves.
With materialism substituted for love, many children have no comprehension of an
overriding purpose for life, no sense that life is anything more than a quest for
instant gratification. They have scarce knowledge of a Higher Power with endless
love who reveals a meaningful purpose and destiny for every man, woman and child.
The discouraging social forces affect almost all of society. Even people who profess
to be Christian aren't immune, with divorce and abuse rampant. Too many political
and religious leaders have abandoned belief in absolute standards such as those that
flow from the immutable law of God. God's standards condemn both lack of and abuse
of parental authority as well as the sexual promiscuity that almost always leads
to single-parenthood.
As a result, children absorb a chaos of relativistic values that mingle hedonism
with self-destructive and aggressive behavior.
Serious Consequences
The Creator of mankind has the authority to define right and wrong. And He warns
that He will reject a nation whose mothers and fathers reject the spiritual knowledge
revealed in the law of God.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,î declares the Creator God. ìBecause
you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you . . .
Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget
your children" (Hosea 4:6, emphasis added).
Youth violence is not a mystery. It is a mistake, a sin and a tragedy for all concerned.
But the good news is that the spiritual principles that have always worked still
work. Families, communities and nations don't have to be destroyed if they will seek
the spiritual knowledge that shows them how to express godly love.
Societies and cultures can change. In the case of America's crisis of youth violence,
the problem begins in the home. It is there that parents must learn about and then
begin to foster a family culture based on biblical values. Love, if it is genuine,
always works.
Recommended Reading:
The United Church of God is concerned about the direction our families and youths
have been taking. We have published a blueprint for stable homes, communities and
societies, a booklet titled The Ten Commandments. Without a solid understanding
of the most basic of all laws, society has little chance of saving its youth, its
most treasured possession. Please request your free copy of this booklet from the
office in your country (or the country nearest you) listed on page 2. This booklet
is also available in the literature library at our Web site, www.ucg.org.
Sidebar: The Spirit of Violence
To many secular prophets, the gloomy trends of youthful violence are a harbinger
of a crisis of biblical proportions.
A spirit of violence and death pervades American entertainment media. Dysfunctional,
violent and aggressive ìlifestylesî bring to mind the decay of civilizations and
the warnings of biblical prophets.
Although our youth may experience violence of epic proportions in the next century,
this is nothing new. The Bible describes periods of pervasive violence. Ezekiel prophesied
to a generation in Jerusalem that was later wiped out in one of the bloodiest periods
of Old Testament history: "Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness . . .
The land is filled with crimes of blood, and the city is full of violence" (Ezekiel 7:11,23-24).
The social illness underlying the violence then and now are the same. The American
problem can be traced in large part to a breakdown of family structure and cohesion.
The Bible pinpoints this breakdown as a fundamental cause of violence.
ì. . . The Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to
whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
Did not one God make her? . . . And what does the one God desire? Godly
offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife
of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering
one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and
do not be faithlessî (Malachi 2:14-16, New Revised Standard Version).
Sidebar: A Generation of Abandonment
Some see American children as a generation of rage. Surrounded with materialism,
the typical child may look healthy materially--but many are emotionally abandoned
to look for meaning in things that destroy the mind and heart.
Accompanying children's search for meaning in violent entertainment is the disintegration
of the institution of fatherhood.
Although the average American child watches 220 minutes of television a day, he spends
only three to eight minutes face to face with his father--if he happens to live with
his father. In the absence of a father, television is raising many of our children.
About one in four children grow up with a single mother and another quarter with
a mother and stepfather. But even children with natural fathers who live with them
are often profoundly neglected. Struggling with ignorance of child-nurturing skills,
many fathers unknowingly lay the groundwork for a national mental-health crises.
Most people are unaware of the connection between deteriorating psychological health,
the absence of strong, loving fathers and youth violence.
An epidemic of mental illness in children leaves children, especially boys, prone
to violent behavior.
Kip Kinkle, the 15-year-old who admitted to gunning down 22 students in Oregon, was
diagnosed with attention-deficit-and-hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and a learning disability
when he was 11. New York developmental psychologist Myriam Miedzian noted the boy
had ìeasy access to guns but not to effective treatment."
"ADHD is six to nine times as prevalent among boys than among girls, mental
retardation nearly twice as prevalent, autism three times and conduct disorder four
to 12 times as prevalent" said Dr. Miedzian. "As a result, boys are at
greater risk for violent behavior."
From 1975 to 1990 the percentage of youths in the United States in need of professional
mental health services nearly doubled, from 10 percent to 18 percent, said James
Garbarino, Family Life Development Center director at Cornell University.
Some psychologists estimate 40 percent of the jail population and 30 percent of delinquent
boys suffer from learning disabilities. "Not only do most high-risk children
go untreated, they see more than 10,000 TV murders by the age 18," said Dr.
Miedzian.
Not all of these trends in deteriorating youth mental health are attributed to genetic
factors. Some believe that young children, when lied to and disappointed enough by
care-givers, develop a kind of schizophrenia.
In a process called "crazymaking," children who are told they are loved
by abusive or negligent parents learn to disassociate themselves from primary relationships.
This can happen to children of wealth as well as children of poverty. Some experts
see those youth obsessed with television exhibiting characteristics of attachment
disorder, with television becoming their main reference in life.
© 1999-2022 United Church of God an International Association
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