Some Adolescent Violence Is Predictable Some Adolescent Violence Is Predictable
CHICAGO, May 16 (Reuters Health) - Adolescents who are exposed to violence, abuse alcohol or drugs and have only one parent are at increased risk of killing someone, Dr. Robert Zagar and colleagues from the University of Illinois reported here at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting.
Dr. Zagar's team used data from the juvenile court system in Chicago to develop a set of tools to predict the risk of violence in adolescents that they presented in a report called "Asking the Right Questions to Find Teenage Killers."
Mental health professionals, school counselors and youth officers can use the system to prevent future tragedies like the Columbine High School killings, the researchers report. "The object is not to label them and punish them, but to find them and provide them with services," Dr. Zagar said during a press briefing.
Dr. Zagar and his colleagues compared risk factors for three groups of youth: 10 convicted killers, 101 non-violent youth offenders and a control group of 101 teenfrom the community.
Adolescents with violence in the family, child abuse, gang membership, and alcohol and drug use are at twice the risk of killing someone compared with teenagers without these risk factors, Dr. Zagar said. When those factors are combined with access to weapons, previous arrests, learning problems, and truancy, the teen if our times more likely to become a killer than other youths, he added.
For those with an arrest record or a history of school suspensions, the warning sign are obvious. But too often they are missed, Dr. Zagar said. "That means thepsychologist, the parent and the teacher, they all knew these were violent teenagers," he said.
His group also measured which prevention programs are most effective. They found that troubled teens respond to programs that offer incentives to graduate from high school. The threat of jail time in "three strikes" programs also seems to work, he added. The findings also show that intensive counseling can be highly effective.
http://www.childadvocate.net/violence_news.htm
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