Adolescent Violence Health Article

ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE

Interpersonal violence among young people aged eleven to nineteen is a significant public health concern. Adolescent violence involves behaviors ranging from physical fighting to more severe forms of physical assault that can result in serious injury or death. In 1998, homicides in the United States claimed the lives of 2,573 persons between eleven and nineteen years old, making it the second leading cause of death for adolescents that year.

Compared to other industrialized countries, "adolescent violence is greater in the United States, more likely to involve firearms, and more lethal in its consequences" (USDHHS 2001, p. 27). One study showed that from 1990 to 1995 the rates of firearm-related homicide in the United States for youth below age fifteen was nearly sixteen times higher than that of twenty-five other countries combined. While this epidemic has substantially subsided, the adolescent homicide rates in the United States by firearms continues to be high when compared with other countries.

During the period from 1980 through 2000, trend patterns in violence among adolescents showed a steep rise and fall. The decade between 1983 and 1993 was marked by an epidemic of increasingly deadly violence associated with increased firearm use. For example, both total and firearm-related homicide rates increased dramatically, peaking in the mid-1990s, and then declined. Arrest rates for homicide, robbery, and rape among adolescents followed a similar pattern. Although these recent downward trends are encouraging, rates of adolescent violence remain at historically high levels.