DOCUMENT RESUME ED 417 242 UD 032 182 AUTHOR Ethiel, Nancy, Ed. TITLE Saving Our Children: Can Youth Violence Be Prevented? An Interdisciplinary Conference (Wheaton, IL, May 20-22, 1996). INSTITUTION Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Center for Criminal Justice. SPONS AGENCY McCormick Tribune Foundation, Chicago, IL. ISBN ISBN-0-88086-029-4 PUB DATE 1996-05-00 NOTE 90p. PUB TYPE Reports - Evaluative (142) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC04 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Conferences; *Cost Effectiveness; High Schools; Inner City; Junior High Schools; Males; Minority Groups; *Prevention; Program Effectiveness; Program Evaluation; Sex Role; Social Problems; *Urban Youth; *Violence ABSTRACT Recognizing that violence is demographically concentrated in the male minority in inner cities is a necessary starting point for discussions of how to combat this violence. A conference on the prevention of youth violence was held in May 1996 to throw light on the problem of youth violence directly and specifically. Participants in this conference wanted to focus on prevention rather than enforcement, although there was no intent to disparage the importance of traditional law enforcement. The conference report in this volume begins by detailing trends in youth violence and the social conditions that underlie it. Then presentations that are reviewed evaluates the cost-effectiveness of specific programs to reduce violence and presentations that discussed personal experiences in implementing programs. The following sections summarize the messages of various conference presenters and participants: (1) "Can We Prevent Youth Violence?"; (2) "The Situation"; (3) "Evaluating Programs Intended To Reduce Youth Violence"; (4) "Early Intervention: A Cure for Violence?"; (5) "Making a Difference in Junior High and High Schools"; (6) "Police-Based Programs"; (7) "Is Looking for Workable Programs Missing a Broader Point?"; (8) "When Can Good Programs Be Replicated and Expanded?"; and (9)"What Has a Real Prospect of Reducing Youth Violence." Appendix A discusses attitudes toward marriage and gender as they affect youth violence. Appendix B contains "There Are No Children Here" by Alex Kotlowitz. A listing of the nine papers presented at the conference is attached. (Contains 30 figures.) 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Harvard Law School Center for Criminal Justice An Interdisciplinary Conference May 20-22, 1996 Cantigny Wheaton, Illinois Nancy Ethiel, Editor Funded by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation 4 Saving Our Children: Can Youth Violence Be Prevented? Published by: Harvard Law School ISBN: 0-88086-029-4 All rights reserved Copyright ©1996 President and Fellows of Harvard College Design and Production: Wildenradt Design Associates Table of Contents Foreword 5 Preventing Crime Through Anti-Violence Programs 6 Policy Makers Have Undervalued Developmental and Situational Remedies for Crime 7 The Underutilized Alternatives for Preventing Youth Violence 7 The Report on the Conference 8 Introduction 10 Can We Prevent Youth Violence? 11 The Situation 12 Changes in the Family 17. The Functions of Adolescent Violence 25 Legal and Illegal Work: Crime, Work and Unemployment 29 Evaluating Programs Intended to Reduce Youth Violence 31 A Cost-Benefit Evaluation of Programs Intended to Divert Children from Crime 31 Evaluating the Cost-Benefit Evaluation: Does Greenwood's Analysis Hold Up? 34 The Seattle Project: A Program That's Working 35 Early Intervention: A Cure for Violence? 40 What Are We Trying to Prevent? 40 Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Programs 40 The Importance of Elementary School 43 Avance: A Family Support Program that Works 45 Making a Difference In Junior High and High Schools 48 Violence Prevention for 11- to 18-Year-Olds 49 The Role of Law Enforcement in Schools 51 Three Popular Proposals: Uniforms, Zero Tolerance of Guns, and After-School Programs 53 3 Police-Based Programs 58 New York City 58 The Police and the Prevention of Youth Violence 59 On the Streets 61 In Smaller Cities: An Experimental Program 63 Is Looking for Workable Programs Missing a Broader Point? 65 Is American Society Off the Track? 65 What Does It Take to Raise a Village? 67 When Can Good Programs Be Replicated and Expanded? 69 Providing Organizational Development Assistance 69 Creating Community Support 71 Replicating a Good Program: Getting It Rolling on the Ground 72 What Has a Real Prospect of Reducing Youth Violence? 74 A Short List of Suggestions for Violence Prevention 75 How Can We Save Our Children? 75 Appendix A: Attitudes Toward Marriage and Gender as They Affect Violence 76 The Value of Marriage 76 ® The Issue of Gender 77 Appendix B: There Are No Children Here 79 Papers Presented at the Conference 85 Conference Participants 86 7 4 Foreword is plainly something very wrong with the way our many children in single-parent families, a concentration of democraticdemocratic institutions are dealing with the problem of drug problems, and of many of the other ills of an underclass. violent crime at the national level. The prescriptions of This massive concentration of ills reminds us that there both conservative and moderate politicians could be may be limits to what can be accomplished either by law compared to a powerful vise whose arms, despite enormous enforcement or by discrete programs that address violence. effort, never quite meet. The President speaks of sixty thou- Donald Hernandez described for the conference immense sand criminals being denied guns because of the Brady Bill. changesgenerally for the worsein the world of child- But how many of these people later obtained a gun from a hood. Rapid increases in the number of single-parent fam- friend, or on the black market, or by theft, or through better- ilies and in the relative and often absolute poverty in which forged documentation, or in another state? Conservatives children are growing up are having their effects. So is unem- argue for greatly expanding the number of prisons, and then ployment, for a rich variety of reasons ranging from its effect filling them. But the advantages of this approach depend on the likelihood of a child's father being present to the upon who will be put in prison and for how long. Democrats structuring of an adolescent's life and hopes. These condi- speak of a hundred thousand new police on the street. But tions encourage violence, and violence encourages some of how much this helps and for how long depends upon where these conditions. But they are likely to be addressed, if at all, the police are placed, what they do, and whether the cities will only in broader termssuch as President Clinton's propos- pick up their cost after the few years that the federal govern- als for empowerment and enterprise zonesnot in ways ment is willing to bear it. Thus debate continues at a level of that deal specifically with how to prevent violence. generality about the problem of violence and possible solu- The conference on prevention of youth violence held at tions to it that is far too vague to be useful. the Cantigny Estate of the McCormick Tribune Foundation Though little in the world of violence has changed in May 1996 was intended to throw light on the problem of since the early 1970s, and, overall, violence has not increased, youth violence directly and specifically. Imagine that the we do have one dramatic new problem of violence in the mayor of a large American city wanted to know exactly what United States, and that is the burst of youth violence, close- to do to address the dangers of youth violence in the decade ly associated with gun use, that occurred about the time of ahead. What approaches could we offer to him or her? the arrival of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s. Though the First, we would have to sort out the problems of poli- growth in youth violence began to turn around in the mid- tics from the problems of policy. After the Presidential elec- 1990s, homicide figures are still far in excess of anything we tion campaign of 1996, none of us needs to be reminded of have known before. how important crime is to politicsnor of how important Recognizing where the youth violence problem is, see- politics is to crime policy. At the heart of both of these ing that it is demographically concentrated in male, minori- issues is fear.Although overall violent crime has not ty youth in inner cities, is the necessary starting point for any increased since the early '70s, and is at present in a down- discussion of how our democracy can address the issue. It is swing, it remains close to the top of American concerns. also the case that in that same narrow demographic and geo- And although youth violence is concentrated in a demo- graphic band lives a great majority of the victims of violent graphically narrow band, the fear of it is felt deeply by a far crime, an unusually high percentage of the unemployed, too wider segment of the American population. 5 Foreword There are two ways a democratic population can ous people. We know that the character an individual brings respond to its fear of violence.