Last year, Richmond city had the highest number of homicides in 15 years. Violence continues to be rampant throughout the country–and youth are not immune to the problem.
Dr. Bela Sood, child and adolescent psychiatrist and senior professor for child mental health policy at our Virginia Treatment Center for Children has supported the mental health care needs of young people ages 14-20 in the juvenile justice system for the last decade and offers some insight into what’s behind youth violence and how communities can band together to turn the trend around.
Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. A lot of the problems, and the reasons these young people get incarcerated, stem back to early childhood experiences. They’ve dealt with trauma in the form of neglect or emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Their experiences impact the way they were socialized. Many had to skip developmentally appropriate rites of passage and fend for themselves without the maturity required to do so safely, leading to risky behaviors and a life of crime.
By the time they’re incarcerated, it’s too late to rectify what has happened. However, we can learn a lot from their stories to change the way we look at early childhood and the importance of expending resources to assure normal development in children.
A very small percentage of humans have an inherent tendency toward aggression. Another small percentage have genetic risk factors that make them more prone to violence. The rest comes about from the environmental factors explained above which are preventable and offer hope that if communities had the will, this trajectory could be changed.
When I speak with young people about guns, I get different responses. Most commonly I hear, “I have to protect myself and my family as where I live is dangerous.” They feel naked and insecure without their guns. Guns give them a sense of power when powerlessness is a common feeling growing up. In some cases, a gun gives them a certain stature within the community.
Guns often go hand-in-hand with the drug culture also, which is a dangerous combination. The availability of drugs enhances the propensity for violence when the situation arises. Many of the crimes committed by the youth I work with are violent in nature–attempted homicide, carjacking, vandalism–which is not only scary, but sad In the impact that it has on the person’s life and the mental health issues that stem from it.
When we understand what’s behind the violence, we can begin to work toward reducing those factors.
About 98% of the stories I hear are replicas of each other, which says a lot, but it gives us a good understanding about the common risk factors that lead to violence. Youth violence is a societal problem. We’re not providing the right environment to support a large segment of our children, which speaks to the inequity and discrimination in how resources are allocated.
Our communities need to put an emphasis on interventions that promote healthy child development, reduce maltreatment and nurture children as they grow. These are not small or quick answers. They must be entrenched in the scaffolding of our urban and inner-city landscapes.
We need to focus on what will produce healthy child development and proper nourishment of the soul. This comes in the form of social supports and community engagement.
The ultimate goal? Crimes will never be eradicated but we can reduce the frequency of these crimes, particularly at an early age, by paying attention to prevention of risk factors and enhancing strength-based interventions. A social environment that is supportive of healthy infant and childhood development with emphasis on the eradication of childhood abuse can produce very different outcomes, especially when it comes to violence.