Babies Killing Babies :: essays research papers

BABIES KILLING BABIES National Institute of Mental Health: Thinking About Violence in Our Schools Office of The Surgeon General: Youth Violence Two teenagers entered a high school in Colorado and opened fire on their classmates. The young gunmen end their lives, but not before taking the lives of fifteen students, and injuring twenty, finalizing the tragedy. In recent years we have experienced a rampage of violence in our schools. Researchers have yet to pinpoint the answer to this plague of violent disorders. The National Institute of Mental Health, and The Office of the Surgeon General have focused their research to the areas of stages of violence development, prevention and intervention, and methods of identifying the most effective treatments. Studies by the Office of the Surgeon General have concluded that there are two paths for the materialization of youth violence. One is identified at an early age of puberty, the other in the adolescent stage. The research shows that if there is violence demonstrated in the early childhood stage of a child, the degree of violence in the child rises, as the child grows older, concluding in severe violent behavior. The group that is said to be in the early-onset group, or before puberty, is said to have a greater and more serious number of violence incidents during the adolescent years. This also leads to a determining factor for violent behavior during their adulthood, (see research by Stattin and Magnusson, 1996; and Tolan and Gorman-Smith, 1998). Research has shown that violence offenses committed by young men, between the ages of sixteen or seventeen, can be traced back to their puberty stage (D’Unger et al., 1998; Elliot et al., 1996; Huzinga et al., 1995; Nagin and Tremblay , 1999; Patterson and Yoerger, 1997; Stattin and Magnusson, 1996). This is proof that the majority of offenders began their violent behavior during the younger years. However, the study also shows that those who began in the puberty stage did not commit the most serious and persistent acts of violence; moreover, by those who’s violent behavior began during adolescence. The study also concludes that there is very little support to the claims that youth violence can be easily identified at an early age. We can see an example of this in the violent shootings that took place in Jonesboro, Arkansas; where two boys, ages eleven and thirteen years old, opened fire during a false fire alarm, killing four girls and one teacher.