U.S.: 60% of Kids Exposed to Violence

(AP)  Justice Department researchers said Wednesday that most children in the United States are exposed to violence in their daily lives - findings that Attorney General Eric Holder called "staggering."

A leading criminologist cautioned that the survey may be lumping serious and minor incidents together.

More than 60 percent of children surveyed were exposed to violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly, according to data compiled by the department. The survey's authors defined exposure to violence as being a victim, or having witnessed violence, or learning about violence against a relative, friend, or hearing about a threat to their school or home.

That approach raised questions for some.

"What concerns me when you hear numbers like this is that in their attempt to be inclusive, which is commendable, the definition of violence becomes so broad that the results lack real meaning," said James Alan Fox, criminal justice professor at Northeastern University. "If you broaden the definition of violence so much, then most people will be included."

Nearly half of all children surveyed were assaulted at least once in the past year, and about 6 percent were victimized sexually, the survey found.

"Those numbers are astonishing, and they are unacceptable," Holder said in Chicago, where he was meeting with local officials to discuss the disturbing beating death of a high school student by other teens.

"We simply cannot stand for an epidemic of violence that robs our youth of their childhood and perpetuates a cycle in which today's victims become tomorrow's criminals," Holder said.

For example, the survey's definition of sexual victimization includes rape, attempted rape, sexual harrassment, or flashing.

Among the survey's other findings:

- Nearly one in ten children said they saw one family member assault another in the past year.

- More than one-half of the children, about 57 percent, reported having been assaulted at some point in their life.

- Thirteen percent reported having been physically bullied in the last year.

The results were based on telephone interviews of 4,549 kids and adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008. The National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence was sponsored by the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, with help from the Centers for Disease Control.

The attorney general and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were in Chicago Wednesday to meet with local officials, parents, and students to discuss the vicious beating of a 16-year-old high school student whose killing last month was captured on a cell phone video.

Derrion Albert, an honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School, was attacked when he got caught up in a mob of teens about six blocks from school. Video shows him curled up on the sidewalk as fellow teens kick him and hit him with splintered railroad ties. So far, four teens have been charged in his death.

[mauriciott]

It is impressive how the modern American culture has done away with basic moral ways and principles. The main kid exposure to violence comes from electronic games that parents buy for their children. But this is a country where money is king, so if that means a good business for someone, then those games are fine.
These ways have brought a social behaviour that must be champion of wrong doing in the world. It is one in which people have no manners, they are cocky, petulant, never say hello, thank you, I am sorry. Insults have replaced good manners. This country is now a land where kids rule over fathers and teachers. The only place in the world where children cannot be disciplinned through reasonable spanking or deprivation as we were. The result is kids calling for the police against their parents; parents that become indiferent after feeling helpless, parents that smoke and not only cigarretes in front of their kids. Kids hurting parents or committing crimes at an early stage of their lives.
All tis is the result of a missuse of freedom. The result of a culture where religion cannot be in schools because some people do not believe in God, so their right deprives those who do believe, from their right to have religion for their children. Freedom has been overtaken by an anarchist school of thought that has made this the most impolite, rude society. There is no respect for istitutions, the president,church (whatever the creed), elders or disabled.

[stuart-johns2]

It's strange that the republicans would find fault with Obama over this. It's the very rights that republicans (and others) treasure so much that has caused this.

Freedom of speech is abused these days to mean I have the right to be as nasty and disrepectful and as destructive as I have a constitutional right to be.

Freedom of speech now means freedom to make money using any method imaginable. Freedom of speech these days does not take into account personal responsibility.

Kids are exposed to violence on television and through music (rap). It is a way of life to many, especially gangs and gangs are proliferating because nothing was ever done about them on a national level.

As I have always said, every problem facing this nation can be easily traced back to a lack of morality, situational ethics. The 'I can do what I want' mentality is destroying this country.

Freedom without constraint is no freedom at all.

[gramto8]

by newsworthy8 October 7, 2009 11:10 PM EDT
How in the "SAM HELL" can you teach or preach justice in a town like Chicago..look who you have, Jackson, or two Jackson's, Sharpton, the Gov" and on and on, baby what is this about', don't cry Chicago, look after your own frigin' problems..

by randomlybanned October 8, 2009 12:14 AM EDT
Oh, goody, the rest of the nation gets to pay for Chicago's thugs to be "rehabilitated." BO will get their money to them one way or another!
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From the article:

The results were based on telephone interviews of 4,549 kids and adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008. The National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence was sponsored by the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, with help from the Centers for Disease Control.

Please note the dates of the survey and the fact that it was a NATIONAL survey!!