Who Am I? The Question of Violence
By Gina Stepp
"In violence, we forget who we are," said American novelist Mary McCarthy.
If these words are true, we may be facing a generation of children who, despite the number of profile pages they may have on MySpace or Bebo, are increasingly missing a sense of identity.
"Violent Youth Crime up a Third" asserts a January headline in the online U.K. Telegraph. Beneath this header are statistics illustrating that between 2003 and 2006 the number of violent crimes committed by British youth has increased by 37 percent. While this figure may be difficult to believe, it does seem to be borne out by news reports. Here are a few stories dug up in a two-week period during the first month of 2008:
January 2, 2008: A father of two [52-year-old Ron Sharples] dies after being assaulted by a group of youths while out looking for the family dog.
January 3, 2008: Eric Mitchell, 43, suffers horrific injuries after being hit over the head with a paving slab by a gang of teens. He believes he was then beaten as he lay unconscious on the ground in Trowbridge, Cardiff.
January 16, 2008: A British court finds three teens guilty of murdering 47-year-old Garry Newlove. The father of three had stepped out of his home to speak to a group of teenagers who, he believed, had been vandalizing his wife's car. The teens kicked him to death.
Unfortunately, the U.K. is not the only nation suffering an increase in youth violence, and perhaps surprisingly, teen males are not the only perpetrators. According to American FBI figures, in 1996 girls accounted for only 10 percent of all violent juvenile arrests. By 2002, however, 24 percent of juvenile arrests for aggravated assault were girls, as were 32 percent of other levels of assaults.
Does this mean the nature of girls is changing? Are females becoming as violent as boys? Lyn Mikel Brown, Meda Chesney-Lind and Nan Stein propose in the journal, Violence Against Women (Vol 13, No. 12; 2007) that "steep increases in girls' arrests are not the product of girls becoming more like boys. Instead, forms of girls' minor violence that were once ignored are now being criminalized."
While girls may not be completely abandoning their nature, whatever one might consider that to be, it's hard to believe that the increase in female juvenile arrests is entirely attributable to "minor violence" suddenly becoming criminalized.
When in the past would the following incidents have been considered "minor" violence?
February 4, 2008: At a bus station in Chelles, France about twenty 15- and 16-year-old girls meet for a rumble. They carry an assortment of weapons that include screwdrivers, bedboards, iron bars and steak knives. Warned by school staff, authorities intervene shortly after the first blows are delivered and arrest eight of the ringleaders. But fellow students say a rematch has already been planned.
The same day in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two teenage girls are sentenced for a crime they committed the previous summer. Apparently, using metal table legs as clubs, the girls had waylaid a 66-year-old woman as she walked through Halifax Common and beat her repeatedly, leaving her with a broken rib and severe bruising.
January 14, 2008: In West Philadelphia, 10 girls attack two other female teens who are waiting for a school bus. Using what is either a box cutter or a straight-edge razor, the attackers slash 15-year-old Shakia West, severely wounding her in the face.
January 10, 2008 In Des Moines, Iowa, a 15-year-old girl is sentenced for a murder. Four months earlier, she had plunged a knife repeatedly into the neck of a 16-year-old acquaintance who died at the hospital soon after the stabbing. When the Judge asked what had provoked the killing, the girl answered, "I stabbed him after I lost my temper and he called me disrespectful names".
If Brown, Chesney-Lind and Stein are correct and girls have always been this way, one can only muse that it's about time such behavior became criminalized, just as it should be for boys. However, if they have not always been this way, why do we see, internationally, such increases in youth violence? Why have so many teens forgotten who they are?
"Almost every day the news carries a story about a stabbing or shooting perpetrated by the young on those more vulnerable", says Vision publisher David Hulme in a recent article titled "Rediscovering the Language of Values". He adds, "It seems obvious that an increasingly materialistic, self-absorbed and morally ambivalent society is failing its children."
On the other hand, wonders the American Psychological Association (APA) on their Web site, "Is youth violence just another fact of life? Are some children just prone to violence?"
To rephrase: Is society really failing its children, or can we place the blame on genetics or emotional immaturity?
As the APA answers its own rhetorical question, Hulme gains an ally. "There is no gene for violence", say these experts, "violence is a learned behavior, and it is often learned in the home or the community from parents, family members, or friends".
Children learn best from people with whom they have secure emotional connections. Neuroscience now confirms what psychologists, parents, theologians and teachers have known all along: strong family relationships and good role models contribute to the formation of the brain, mind, personality and character.
"Mirroring" is one of the first teaching tools available to children. From infancy, we imitate others around us, and each mirroring episode makes a particular neural connection that much stronger. If our role models are compassionate caretakers, we learn compassion and empathy.
But when children experience negligence or witness violent acts, they are more likely to become aggressive and to consider violence an appropriate response when they are angry. As the APA puts it, "The home is the most fertile breeding place for this situation".
In other words, what a child hears, observes and learns in the home is of critical importance.
Hulme writes that among other factors missing in this arena are the building blocks of moral teaching: what he calls the language of values and the terms of ethical discourse.
The APA concurs. "The process by which violence is taught is circular", it says. "It begins in the family, expanding through the culture of the larger society in which a child grows and matures and then again is reinforced or discouraged in the family".
Because we know there is no gene for violence, a society with a violent youth culture must therefore ask some searching questions. Do we as parents know who we are? Do we spend enough time with our children to pass along this understanding? Do our children know who they are?
If they don't, perhaps we are failing our children. And a society that fails its children fails itself.
About the Author
Gina Stepp is a writer and editor with a strong interest in education and the science that underpins family and relationship studies. She began working toward a Journalism major and Psychology minor at the University of Central Florida before moving to California where she completed her BA in Theology in 1985. To contact Gina Stepp, please email at ginastepp@earthlink.net.
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