Youth Violence Is Down, Report Says Surgeon general warns against complacency despite study, spurred by Columbine High, that finds a drop in incidents from peak year of 1993.

If there is one overriding message that emerges from the first-ever surgeon general’s report on youth violence released Wednesday, it is this: Things are not as bad as many people think.

Arrests of young people are down. Incidents of youth violence are “less lethal” than they were in 1993--the peak year. To be sure, teenagers in confidential surveys report that they are still drawn to violent behavior. But there are prevention programs that work, and--just as important--there are programs identified by experts that do not work.

The United States “is well past the ‘nothing works’ era with respect to reducing and preventing youth violence,” the report concludes. “Less than 10 years ago, many observers projected an inexorably rising tide of violence. The recent marked reductions . . . appear to belie those dire predictions.”

Nevertheless, “violent behavior remains alarmingly high” and “Americans cannot afford to become complacent,” said Surgeon General David Satcher. “This is no time to let down our guard on youth violence.”

The report was requested by Congress and the Clinton administration after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

The report conducted no new research. Instead scientists examined all available studies to establish the scope of youth violence in the nation.

What it found is that drugs, guns, gangs and precociousness are all contributors to youth violence but that other factors--family, school, peers--vary in importance as children move from infancy to early adulthood. The report also found that exposure to media violence can increase aggressive behavior among children in the short term, although evidence was lacking on its long-term effects.

As for the numbers, the report found that youth homicide, robbery and arrest rates in 1999 were actually lower than they were in 1983, largely because of a decrease in the use of firearms by young people since the peak years of the mid-1990s.

But arrest rates for aggravated assaults remain nearly 70% higher than in 1983, and “self-report” studies, which elicit confidential reports by youths themselves, indicate that the rates of violent offenses have not declined in the last few years.

Satcher called for a “national resolve” to confront the problem of youth violence but urged: “We cannot afford to waste resources on ineffective or harmful interventions and strategies or to further jeopardize the well-being of youth who may be assigned to ineffective programs.”

Some Programs Didn’t Work

The report discusses at length examples of programs considered valuable--as well as those shown to be ineffective.

Unsuccessful approaches include peer counseling, gun buyback programs, boot camps, adult courts and social casework, the report says.

One school-based prevention program--the most widely implemented drug prevention program in the country, in fact--Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as DARE, has been shown in numerous studies to have little or no effect in deterring children from substance abuse, the report says.

DARE continues to receive substantial support from parents, teachers, police and government funding agencies, “and its popularity persists” despite studies showing it has no effect, the report says.

Researchers have suggested that DARE needs more “social skills” training and that it may be developmentally inappropriate. It is targeted to fifth- and sixth-graders, and experts believe that “it is hard to teach children who have not gone through puberty how to deal with the peer pressure to use drugs that they will encounter in middle school,” the report says.

Changes are now being made in the program to introduce social skills training sessions to the curriculum and to use it in older populations--although the effect of these changes has not yet been evaluated, the report says.

A program that worked for Gilbert Salinas, now 25, of Los Angeles was Teens on Target. Salinas was shot and paralyzed nearly 10 years ago and is now confined to a wheelchair. He said that, despite the attack, “I went back to the streets” after recovering, “full of anger” and returned to the gangs that had always been his “extended family.”

Teens on Target ‘Changed My Life’

Then he met a physician involved with the program and it “changed my life.”

The program provides mentors, skill training and access to scholarships.

“That was six years ago,” he said. “I am now assistant director of the program and a full-time college student. If it wasn’t for this intervention program, I would have been dead in the streets.” Instead, “I am a totally changed individual.”