On September 8th 2010 a 16 year old year, Lorraine Thorpe from Ipswich was sentenced to 14 years in prison after murdering two people on separate occasions, at the time she was only 15 years old. One of the victims was a 41 year woman who was beaten to death by the teen girl, the other her father whom she smothered. Another case of young killers includes that of the James Bulger murder in 1993, this notorious case showed how two 11 year old boys from Liverpool could abduct, torture and then kill a 2 year old toddler. These two cases although 17 years apart show a link in how youth violence is a major and on-going problem in our society. In this essay I will look at the factors influencing youth violence and such life destroying crimes could be prevented.
Violence is a term defined as behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill someone of something. Youth violence is something we are all familiar with, very often we hear about the latest teen to be arrested for stabbing a school mate often over a silly dispute, which they chose to solve with a weapon. But why are youngsters turning to violence to solve their issues? I believe some of the reasons include; the media, as generations younger and younger are growing up with media as a large part of their daily life, with video games especially having a control over young generations. Secondly the education system also have a big influence in a child’s behaviour in later life, the purpose of the system to teach skills and qualities to help a person with their life and career down the line, so with this responsibility education systems should take strict punishments on acts of violence, ensuring that a child knows the consequences of their actions. Another factor ...
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...re put into schools on this matter even if a parent was not fully committed to a child they would still benefit from basics of right and wrong and how to behave. As for video games, this matter could be easily resolved; if people really did show more of a concern then it would be an easily fixable to remove the large amount of unnecessary violence from these games. But even if all these possible influences were fixed, would it help? Maybe this is a growing problem due to dozens of factors, we constantly hear that it is becoming harder to be a child in today’s society, the media is constantly judging and commenting on our behaviour, weapons are becoming readily more accessible to youths, so is there really a quick fix to our problem? No I don’t think so, to address this problem properly we would have to look at ourselves as a society and see what we are doing wrong.
In today’s world there has been huge increases in violent acts being done. Kids are turning into to bullies, murders, thieves and more. This can be happening for many different reasons. One could say it is the way the children are raised, what they see going on in their neighborhoods, what they are watching on television, seeing online, or on their video games. Everyone reacts to things differently and the violent media kids see can have different effects on each of them. According to the article “Violent Media is Good for Kids” written by Gerard Jones, violent media and other forms of ‘creative violence’ help far more children than they hurt. Gerald Jones gives examples through the article on experiences that are personal to him where violent media has been helpful but he does not give enough facts to make the reader believe it helps more children than it hurts.
“Most of the research on youth’s perceptions of violence, however, is based on topics and questions defined by researchers. Few studies provide a format that allows youth to express their ideas about youth violence in their own voices. Rather, they report youth’s responses to closed-ended questions about issues in which the researcher is interested. The unique contribution of this study is that it is based on youth’s perspectives on violence in their own words” (Zimmerman et al., 2004). The cause of violence could be for many reasons including peer pressure, family problems, physical and mental health problems as well.
Do violent media produce our youth commit violence. While people believe this I disagree and realize it is just a scapegoat, and believe the previous article state that media helps us deal with negative emotions that humans feels. For people at one time will feel rage or anger and learning how to control these emotions is an important segment of growing up. It is dangerous to hide these feelings and pretend that they don 't against. For then when they pop up in life we will not be able to control our action and that can lead to violence. It is important that kids nowadays view violence for what it is, for it will always be around and one day every person will become a victim of it. The glorification of violence is also not something that is modern, the oldest told stories have excess violence in them. Even back then I believe people have been able to tell the difference between fantasy and real world. So what could be the cause of the increase in violence. There are two things that I believe causes of our current violent world. The first is the breakdown of the family of America. Kids are growing up nowadays with less guidelines and no one to teach them right from wrong. Being forced to conduct adult decisions at younger and younger ages and this is leading to a downward fall of society. The
Our society incorporates violence into nearly every aspect of its existence. We pick up the newspaper or turn on the television and find details of the latest violent crimes. More often these crimes involve children. Recently two young boys murdered a young girl for her bicycle. They valued a material object more than a human life. At some point in their lives they learned it was okay to harm another individual. No one provoked them and they were not defending themselves. They acted out of pure selfishness. Sadly this scenario has become all too familiar over the last few years. In the past two decades violent crime among juveniles ages 14-17 has increased tremendously. Between 1983 and 1992 juvenile arrests increased 117% (U.S. Department of Justice, 12). This suggests an increase in the growing involvement of young people in violent crimes. To relieve this problem nationally and globally, we need to adapt the use of nonviolence into our culture. We can do this by understanding the basic principles of nonviolence our peace leaders have practiced and develop strategies for their incorporation into our daily lives.
According to John Davidson's essay Menace to Society, "three-quarters of Americans surveyed [are] convinced that movies, television and music spur young people to violence." While public opinion is strong, the results of research are divided on the effects of media violence on the youth in this country. Davidson wrote that most experts agree that some correlation between media violence and actual violent acts exists, yet the results are contradictory and researchers quibble about how the effects are to be measured (271). Moreover, Davidson is not convinced that the media is the sole problem of violence, or even a primary problem. He points out that other factors, such as "poverty, the easy accessibility of guns, domestic abuse, [and] social instability" may have a greater impact on a child becoming violent than the influence of the media (277). Even though other forces may be stronger, media violence does have some adverse effects on the members of society. If senseless violence on television and in movies had no effect, it would not be such a hotly debated topic. What type of effects and whom they affect are the most argued aspects of the discussion.
"Teen violence refers to harmful behaviors that can start early and continue into young adulthood" (Teen Violence). As generations continue to pass, the issue of teen violence remains. Why do kids act the way they do? What factors into their violent behavior? Questions like these do not have straight answers; instead, they seek out people's differing opinions. John Leo, Mike Males, Gloria Steinem, Charlie James, Chuck Shelton, Annette Fuentes, and James Garbarino share their opinions about the controversy of teen violence through newspaper and magazine articles. Each article has its own unique points, whether they are strong or weak. "Children in a Violent World" by James Garbarino offers the most convincing causal analysis and helps reveal the problem of teen violence to his readers.
Fear of youth violence is a constant concern by millions of people all over the world. Kids seem to take up more and more space of crimes that are usually committed by adults over the age of 18. "Statistics confirm that more horrendous crimes are being committed by increasingly younger children" (Levine 27). These crimes committed by youth's are caused by many different reasons: Poverty, neighborhoods, schools, parents, and TV, are the main concerns. But what is in most people's minds is what we can do to help prevent this violence. Although there are many different methods for reducing youth violence such as administering harsher punishments and steering kids away from gang influences, the most effective is training in conflict resolution because it gives kids another alternative to fighting. There are many different reasons as to why kids administer violence. Families, neighborhoods, peer groups, television, schools, and your personal factors are the main reasons. According to Joy G. Dryfoos, "Children who demonstrate antisocial behavior come from very non-supportive families at two extremes: either the family is repressive and abusive, or it seriously neglects the child from the early years on" (71). Parental neglect is a strong predictor of violence in a child, and parental rejection is the most powerful predictor. "The closer the child's relationship with his parents, the more he is attached to and identified with them, the lower his chances of delinquency" (Hirschi 71). Neighborhoods and peer groups are also a great influence on kids and their crimes. Growing in an underclass neighborhood is closely related with the risk of delinquency. Not all poor people are criminals, but drugs, guns and poverty are identified as causes o...
With today’s violence among teens rising, most people would like to know why? Does it have anything to do with the way we are raising our children? Some would blame the parents for their child’s aggression, or some would declare that it only has to do with the peers the child associates themselves with, and others would blame media, such as television or video games. Well, which is it? What is the main cause for teen violence today?
Violence presented in the media has been questioned by many for years if there is a strong correlation that produces more violent members of society.According to Kaplan, 2 teenage boys who murdered 12 schoolmates and a teacher and injured 21 others at Columbine High School in Colorado before killing themselves, lived in a pathological environment. Their lives centered around violent video games. This could been avoided if the children didn't have such easy access to violence. Therefore, a step in the right the path would be limiting youths exposure to violence.
“The number of under-18s convicted or cautioned over violent offences rose from 17,590 to 24,102 - an increase of 37 per cent” Telegraph, Leapmen. Youth crime has increased drastically over the years as it can be seen from the statistics given above in 2008 on the telegraph newspaper. Youth crime has been an issue for a long time now; however it is becoming a major issue as it is only getting worse with how many youngsters are committing crime as well as the seriousness of the youth crimes is increasing. Criminologists as well as sociologists try to find out the main reason behind children turning to crime and have managed to come up with a few theories as well as good reasons to why many children would consider committing crime. (Source 1)
Violence is a difficult term to define, but for the purposes of this assignment violence can be defined as a crime or the threat to commit a crime by one person upon another person, and that usually that has negative physical or emotional effects upon the victim. Violence in Western society has been increasing steadily and has become a major concern for many nations. Increasingly, much of the violence is committed by male children and teenagers. Crimes by young people are no longer just misdemeanors, but they now include the major felonies of rape, robbery and homicide. The rise in violent crime in the last few decades has been accompanied by a rise in violence in the media, especially television, movies and music. To protect society, the US government must impose regulations on these media outlets so that audiences are not subjected to too much gratuitous violence that may influence them to commit such acts of violence.
It is almost a daily occurrence to turn on the nightly news and hear stories of ever increasing youths committing crimes. Even more alarming are the ages of these offenders. In Lake Station, Indiana, three first-grade students were plotting to kill a classmate. They even went so far as to draw a map of where the slaying was to take place. In California a six year old boy was charged with attempted murder of a 3 month old baby. In Southern California, three 17 year old girls were charged with false imprisonment, conspiracy, aggravated mayhem and torture when they held a 15-year-old runa...
The youth of our nation is being exposed to explicit gaming and graphic images that lead them to debauchery filled thoughts. They are learning to decimate the opposing player by any means necessary and to annihilate anyone who stands in the way of victory. When constantly exposed to violent images through media and technology our adolescents become desensitized to aggressive behavior. “In other words, youth come to believe that aggression is normal, appropriate, and likely to succeed” (Anderson). Adolescents are easily influenced and when the constant exposure of violence is nagging at their thoughts, some choose to bring fantasy into reality. To make matters worse, even our adults are being diseased with iniquitous thoughts!
Youth crime is generally thought as being a very recent and modern day phenomenon, however this is widely untrue. Juvenile crime has been recorded ever since the early 17th Century and yet it has only been within the last 100 years that it has become such a significant issue with the general public (Goldson and Muncie, 2006). It is widely known that the present population are much more aware of youth crime and the implications it causes than ever before. There are endless theories as to why crime occurs and about the correct approach to combat it, the main conflict being over whether to treat young people as a threat or as a victim, which is a debate that still continues to this day (Omaji,
When a child observes daily occurrences of violence across: news broadcast, radio, and public incidences, why society is so violent should not be the question, but how society can decrease youth violence should be explored. Today’s youth has an overwhelming burden to bear. Violence has increased in society and youth often are exposed to situations that end in violent acts. The family dynamic has changed significantly in the last 40 years: with increased divorce, single parent households, and blended families the variability for children to be unsupervised allows for increased exposure to violence as well as expressing violence. Societal acceptance of violent acts has also opens the door for children to face more violent situations. The constant growth of drug and weapon use among today’s youth has become a proponent of increased violence against this generation. Violence in society today is caused by decreased parental supervision, societal acceptance, and drug and weapon access.This essay will Understanding why the trend of violence occurs and how it changes the future of youth