Why should youth violence prevention be a high priority for community efforts?
Youth violence is a public health issue with impacts beyond the initial victim and immediate economic damage.
Viewing youth violence as a public health issue allows our community to respond to it with an encompassing array of strategies, programs, and approaches. Such a comprehensive approach reflects the multi-faceted nature of the problem and its vicious cycle of causes and effects.
The Center for Disease Control has designated youth violence as a public health issue4, an approach that broadens our response capacity, allowing communities to bring preventive strategies to bear. This approach can complement the criminal justice system’s efforts by deploying strategies drawn from the social and developmental sciences. Moreover, recognition of youth violence as an epidemic can ensure that we address its causes and effects across the spectrum of affected victims.
The victimization of youth violence extends far beyond the initial injury. Violence leaves lasting scars not only on victims and perpetrators but the families and friends of both groups. Frequently, the devastation caused by violence lasts for a life time. For most victims, being physically assaulted prompts fear, grief, vulnerability and anger that continue for many years after the actual incident. Families of victims and perpetrators also suffer. Moreover, evidence continues to mount showing that victims are more likely to become offenders. For instance, a 2007 study on the link between victims and offenders found that “Victimization is associated with a later rise in offending in the longer term.”5
Although the financial impact on victims of crime is less well documented, one study, published by the National Institute of Justice in 19966 estimated the tangible cost of $105 billion (including damaged property, medical and productivity losses). Tangible costs include:
- Repairing property or replacing possessions,
- Accessing health services,
- Participating in the criminal justice process, for example, attending the trial,
- Obtaining professional counseling to come to terms with the emotional impact,
- Taking time off work or from other income-generating activities,
- Funeral or burial expenses.
The “intangible” costs estimated by the NIJ study were far greater — at $345 billion. The study borrowed from the approach of civil law damage suits to project the value of intangibles, including pain, emotional suffering, and risk of long-term disability or death.
This study was designed to establish the economic value of victimization for a variety of crimes regardless of the perpetrator’s age, and did not include the governmental costs to investigate, try, and incarcerate offenders. Nevertheless, it certainly demonstrates that the impact of violence goes far beyond the initial victim.