Youth Violence: Where Does the Blame Really Lie?

The Spirit of Violence

To many of today's secular prophets, the frightening trends of youth violence are a harbinger of a coming social crisis of biblical proportions if not reversed.

A spirit of violence and death pervades American media and entertainment. Dysfunctional, violent and aggressive lifestyles increasingly bring to mind the decay of earlier civilizations and societies and the warnings of the biblical prophets.

While our youth may experience violence of epic proportions as the next century unfolds, this is no new story. The Bible describes periods of pervasive violence. Ezekiel prophesied to a generation in Jerusalem that was later wiped out in one of the most violent 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 crises 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: "...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 faithless" (Malachi 2:14-16, New Revised Standard Version).

A Generation of Abandonment

Some have described American children as "a generation of rage." Surrounded with materialism, the typical child may look healthy materially -- but so many are emotionally abandoned to somehow find meaning in things which destroy the mind, heart and spirit.

Parallel with children finding meaning in violent entertainment is a meltdown in fatherhood.

While the average American child watches 220 minutes of television each day, he spends only three to eight minutes interacting face-to-face with his father -- if he lives with one. Some have made the point that in the absence of a father's presence television is actually parenting many of our children.

Approximately one in four children grow up with a single mother; another quarter with a stepfather. But even those with natural fathers in the home are often profoundly alienated. Struggling with ignorance of child development and nurturing skills, many fathers are unknowingly laying the groundwork for a future national mental health crisis. Most people are unaware of the connection between deteriorating psychological health, the absence of strong nurturing fathers and youth violence.

An epidemic of childhood mental health problems leaves increasing numbers of 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 learning disability (LD) when he was 11. New York developmental psychologist Myriam Miedzian noted Kinkle was "given easy access to guns but not to effective treatment."

"ADHD is six to nine times as prevalent among boys as among girls, mental retardation nearly twice as prevalent, and autism three times and conduct disorder four to 12 times as prevalent," says 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," says Miedzian.

Not all of these trends in deteriorating youth mental health are attributed to genetic factors. Many now believe that young children, when lied to and disappointed enough by caregivers, exhibit 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 "the tube" becoming their main reference in life.