Black Teen Homicides On Rise, Study Finds

(AP)  Black teenagers are killing each other in rising numbers as part of a troubling trend that has been masked by a falling crime rate in the United States, according to a new study released Monday by Northeastern University.

FBI crime statistics show overall decreases in violent crime and murder. But amid those numbers, the report by criminal justice professors James Alan Fox and Marc Swatt found other disturbing trends.

Among their findings: an increase of more than 39 percent in the number of black males between ages 14-17 killed between 2000 and 2007 and an increase of 34 percent in the number of blacks that age who committed homicide.

The increases for white male teens, meanwhile, were nearly 17 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

"We can't ignore the fact that hidden within the overall good news on crime is very bad news for a segment of the population - young black males - and that needs our attention," Fox said.

Fox calls for an infusion of government money to beef up police forces and restore mentor, sports, after-school and summer programs that withered as federal funds were redirected from cities to homeland security after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"We need to invest much more in the lives of these kids," Fox said. "I know there's lots of people who say times are tough and we don't have the money, but we either pay for these programs now or pray for the victims later because crime doesn't wait until the economy improves."

Fox emphasizes that despite problems highlighted in his report, crime isn't out of control. Recent crimes statistics indicate progress, including a drop in overall crime and murder rates between 2006 and 2007, the most recent year available.

The numbers are a vast improvement over the 1990s when the emergence of crack cocaine fueled an explosion in violence, the Northeastern report said. In 1993, 225 out of every 100,000 blacks ages 14-17 committed homicide compared with 81 out of 100,000 today.

But that's an increase from 2000, when the number was 66 per 100,000.

"When you stop paying attention to it, when you stop working at it, the problems can and do rebound," Fox said.

The report indicates guns are overwhelmingly the weapon of choice for young black offenders and are now used in nearly 85 percent of all homicides they commit, matching 1990s levels. The Rev. Jeffrey Brown, executive director of the anti-crime Ten Point Coalition in Boston, said the spike in gun murders by and on young blacks "bears out what I see on the streets every day."

"The victim and perpetrators of gun crimes are getting younger and younger," he said.

Expansion in government and after-school programs would be welcome, he said. He added that local families and the larger community groups, particularly churches, also need to do more helping kids and families at risk from violence.

Teens - who Brown said "don't know from one day to the next if a bullet screaming through their street has their name on it or not" - talk to him about more mentoring and after-school programs, more strong male and female role models. They also wonder if their lives would be different if their fathers were around.

"When you get to the street level, politics doesn't matter. What matters are these young people and the daily violence that they have to face, and is there anybody out there to help them?" Brown said. "That's their question."

But some warn more money for more programs could be wasted. Kay Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute fellow who has studied the breakdown of marriage in the United States, said programs for at-risk youth are often ineffective and don't address the root problem of absentee fathers and fractured black families.

"We still need to bring the conversation around to the subject that everyone has been uneasy about, and that's the breakdown of the family," she said.

Hymowitz said people have shied from addressing the disarray in the black family because "it sounds like blaming blacks to some people." But she said the issue must be confronted head on.

"We don't know how to bring fathers back into the family, but we do know that the silence on the subject over the last 40 years has been a disaster for blacks and this (report) is evidence of that," she said.

[erasmus606]

Posted by presjfk at 04:55 PM : Dec 30, 2008

When faced with the truth, deny, deny, deny.

[presjfk]

I know it''''s difficult when you are slapped in the face with the TRUTH. Another person living in denial.
Posted by erasmus606 "

Difficult only in that the truth is so plain to see and yet you can''t see it...but you are in good company. Political correctness is the philosophy of the new century.

[erasmus606]

The rest of the world doesn''t seem to have the problems that America has. Maybe it''s time to come out of the dark ages.

[erasmus606]

Posted by presjfk at 03:45 PM : Dec 30, 2008

I know it''s difficult when you are slapped in the face with the TRUTH. Another person living in denial.

[presjfk]

"How do you come out of that WHOLE? Posted by erasmus606"

Your political correctness will be applauded by many for the benefit of no one.

[erasmus606]

So you are saying that black kids aged 14-17 are killing each other as a way of expressing their anger over the enslavement of their forefathers and racism over the last 200 years?

Posted by presjfk at 03:21 PM : Dec 30, 2008

And another thing. Adults are more likely to accept things after awhile. Especially when they realize that nothing is going to change and they are just banging their head against a wall. Children will act out and show their resentment in different ways. They have a lot to resent, don''t you think? After all, things really haven''t changed all that much, have they? They are still being enslaved in their own communities. The white people are still teaching their kids to hate and be racists. They are still being degraded.

[erasmus606]

So you are saying that black kids aged 14-17 are killing each other as a way of expressing their anger over the enslavement of their forefathers and racism over the last 200 years?

Posted by presjfk at 03:21 PM : Dec 30, 2008

That''s EXACTLY what I am saying.


"BS. it is just bad people acting badly, and the society of which they are part of accepts them and their behavior."

I will agree that kids will act badly. But the fact that there is more violence tells me that there is more behind it. How could there not be?

We are not talking about some piddle a-ss resentment because someone did some stupid little thing, here.
We are talking about a race that deliberately enslaved human beings and set out to destroy them. We are talking about a race that did everything they could to convince the other that they were no better than animals and lower than dirt! How do you come out of that WHOLE?

[erasmus606]

If the murders were white on black, or black on white - the conversation would be very different.

Posted by presjfk at 02:57 PM : Dec 30, 2008

So you think that because it''s black on black, that it''s not the whites fault?

Think again. Do you know what the result is from black people being made slaves and treated like animals? It has made them turn on each other. When they look at each other, they see what white people have tried to make them out to be. Some people don''t want to be black because black is supposed to be BAD. They are ashamed of who they are. THAT IS BAD. It makes me sick to think that someone can''t be proud of who they are. Something like this eats away at a person and it will influence everything they do. I know I''m probably not wording this right, but hopefully you will get my meaning.

[presjfk]

"You can''''t seriously believe that when the "white" people did what they did to the "black" people, that everyone was just going to get over something like that?
Posted by erasmus606"

So you are saying that black kids aged 14-17 are killing each other as a way of expressing their anger over the enslavement of their forefathers and racism over the last 200 years? BS. it is just bad people acting badly, and the society of which they are part of accepts them and their behavior.

[presjfk]

"You can''''t seriously believe that when the "white" people did what they did to the "black" people, that everyone was just going to get over something like that?
Posted by erasmus606"

So you are saying that black kids aged 14-17 are killing each other as a way of expressing their anger over the enslavement of their forefathers and racism over the last 200 years? BS. it is just bad people acting badly, and the society of which they are part of accepts them and their behavior.