chapter 4
SOCIAL ISSUES AFFECTING AMERICA'S CHILDREN

In proclaiming November 24 through November 30, 2002, National Family Week, President George W. Bush noted that earlier in the year he signed bipartisan legislation:

to expand the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program, which provides States with vital resources to help families stay together and to promote adoption. The program seeks to prevent child abuse and neglect, avoid removing children from their homes, support family reunification services, and help those children who are unable to return home by providing crucial adoption and post-adoptive services.

AMERICA'S CHILDREN: INDICATORS OF WELL-BEING

The well-being of America's children improved in many respects during the early years of the twenty-first century, according to the seventh annual Federal Inter-agency Forum on Child and Family Statistics report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2003. Teenage pregnancies reached a record low and teen violence dropped dramatically over the past decade. The proportion of children ages three to five enrolled in primary education rose nineteen percentage points, and high school completion rates improved slightly. Infant and childhood death rates continued to decline, adolescent smoking decreased, and fewer children were exposed to the hazards of secondhand smoke. On the other hand, more children were overweight, the incidence of low birth weight infants increased, the number of children living in crowded housing conditions increased, and fewer children had at least one parent with full-time employment.

The Children's Defense Fund offered a different perspective in The State of America's Children 2004. The organization reported that one in six children in the United States continued to live in poverty and one in eight—9.3 million—children had no health insurance. An estimated three million children were suspected victims of child abuse and neglect. Only 31% of fourth graders read at or above grade level and almost one in ten teens aged sixteen to nineteen was a school dropout. Eight children or teenagers died from gunfire every day.

CHILD POVERTY

Poverty was associated with a number of serious problems for children, including inadequate health care and lower educational achievement. In 2003 children were 25.4% of the total population but 35.9% of people in poverty, according to U.S. Census figures. Since the early 1980s, the poverty rates for adults aged sixty-five and over nearly matched those for adults aged eighteen to sixty-four, demonstrating great improvement in the wellbeing of the elderly population. In 1974 children, for the first time, replaced the elderly as the poorest age group. As poverty rates for people aged sixty-five and over continued to decline, the poverty rate for children continued to climb to a 1993 peak of about 22%. The child poverty rate then began a steady decline but leveled off at about 16% in 1999. It began to rise again in 2002. The 2003 child poverty rate of 17.6% represented almost a full percentage point increase over the 16.7% rate in 2002.

In 2003 10% of all families lived in poverty. Families with no "breadwinner," or person who provided primary financial support through steady employment, were most likely to suffer poverty. Such families headed by a female householder had the highest poverty rate at 70.8%. Married-couple families with one or more workers had the lowest poverty rate at 5%. (See Figure 4.1.)

Lower Educational Achievement

"Low-income students' achievement 30 to 37 points below peers" headlined the front page of the August 7, 2004, edition of Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. Across the nation, results of standardized reading and math tests reveal that children in poverty lag behind their classmates in educational achievement.

FIGURE 4.1

For purposes of comparison, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam defined low-income students as those eligible for the federal free lunch and reduced-price lunch program. In the 2003–04 school year, a child in a family of three was eligible for reduced-price lunches if the family's annual income was $28,231 or less. A child in a family of three earning $19,838 or less per year was eligible for free lunches.

Average 2003 national NAEP math scores for all students were higher than in any previous assessment years. Low-income students on average, however, continued to score lower than other students. At the fourth grade level low-income students averaged twenty-two points lower. At the eighth grade level the gap widened with low-income students scoring an average of twenty-eight points lower than other students. (See Figure 4.2.)

Average NAEP reading scores for all students declined slightly from 2002 to 2003. As with math scores, reading scores revealed that low-income students continued to lag behind their classmates. At the fourth grade level low-income students averaged scores twenty-eight points lower than other students. The gap narrowed slightly at the eighth grade level to a twenty-four-point difference in average scores. (See Figure 4.3.)

CHILDREN'S HEALTH

Health Insurance

While medical science has made great advancements in health care in recent years, the cost of treatment and the price of health insurance escalated. "The cost of family health insurance is rapidly approaching the gross earnings of a full-time minimum wage worker," said Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation at the September 2004 release of the organization's Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey. "If these trends continue, workers and employers will find it increasingly difficult to pay for family health coverage and every year the share of Americans who have employer-sponsored health coverage will fall."

Children with health insurance could receive preventive health care, treatment for recurring illnesses such as ear infections and asthma, and treatment when they were sick. The social and economic changes that affected children during the last decades of the twentieth century made access to health care even more essential. Changes in family composition and economic conditions put many children in situations that often required health services—hunger, poor housing conditions, violence, and neglect. Children living with two married parents were more likely to have health insurance (91.3%) compared to children living with their mother only (85.8%) or father only (82.2%), Census data revealed. Only 59.3% of children living with neither parent had health insurance. (See Table 4.1.)

From 1987 to 1996 the number of American children without health insurance climbed from 8.2 million to 10.6 million, the highest levels ever recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau. That trend began to reverse in 1999, when the number of uninsured children dropped to 9.1 million. By 2000 8.5 million children were uninsured and that number remained the same through 2002. While 11.6% of all children were without health insurance in 2002, 20.1% of children in poverty had no insurance. A much higher proportion of Hispanic children (22.7%) lacked insurance than children of other racial or ethnic groups. (See Figure 4.4.)

children in low-income working families. Census Bureau records revealed that, of children with insurance, nearly one in four was covered by Medicaid. Most uninsured children came from low-income working families that were not eligible for public assistance because the family earned too much to qualify for Medicaid. In most cases the parents worked for small companies that did not offer health insurance. When these companies

FIGURE 4.2

FIGURE 4.3

did offer insurance plans, the cost to employees was often too much for low-income workers. According to the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, even with insurance, low-income families had a number of additional barriers to overcome, such as difficulty in scheduling appointments, cultural differences with medical providers, or a lack of services easily accessible from where they lived.

TABLE 4.1

state children's health insurance program (schip). In an effort to improve access to health-care coverage for uninsured children from low-income families who were ineligible for Medicaid, Congress initiated the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (PL 105–33). Each state developed its own eligibility rules for federally assisted insurance programs designed to support working

families and low-income families alike by providing health insurance to their children. By 2004 in most states, uninsured children eighteen years old and younger whose families earned up to $34,100 a year (for a family of four) were eligible. The programs covered doctor visits, prescription medicines, hospitalizations, and much more. Most states also covered the cost of dental care, eye care, and medical equipment. To encourage parents of uninsured children to enroll in the state programs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began a national campaign to link families with the free or low-cost programs. Diverse business and organizational partners were enlisted to support a promotional effort called Insure Kids Now!

Overweight and Inactive Children

In 2002 a report issued by the office of the U.S. Surgeon General noted a number of risk factors for over-weight children. These included high cholesterol and high blood pressure, both of which were linked to heart disease; type 2 diabetes; and poor self-esteem and depression. In addition, statistics showed that overweight children would almost inevitably carry that weight into adulthood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2003 that approximately 15% of all U.S. children and adolescents were overweight in 1999–2000. This was roughly triple the level of those overweight among children and adolescents in the late 1970s.

Sandy Proctor, coordinator of the Kansas State University Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, cited a variety of causes for the increase in overweight children, including reduced physical activity and poor eating habits. She noted that fewer children walked to school while television, video games, and computers offered popular but sedentary after-school entertainment. Children often had less freedom to play outside without supervision due to parents' fears of child abduction. Compounding these issues were funding constraints that forced many schools to reduce or eliminate physical education programs.

role of schools in children's weight problems. Changes in eating habits also contributed to weight gains. Many working parents and busy families abandoned home-cooked family meals and relied more on prepared and fast foods, which typically had high fat and salt content. Food choices available in schools followed the taste patterns of students. In an October 2003 article for Education Week on the Web, Darcia Harris Bowman reported the lucrative practice of school districts signing exclusive vending contracts with soft drink companies. Such contracts generated an estimated $54 million annually for Texas public schools, according to one survey. Subsequently, Texas became one of the first states to limit children's access to "foods of minimum nutritional value" in elementary and middle schools.

In its Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2003 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 15% of all high school students were at risk of becoming overweight in 2003, while another 14% were actually overweight. Nearly twice as many male students as female students were in the overweight

FIGURE 4.4

category. More than one-third of African-American female students and two-fifths of Hispanic male students were at risk or actually overweight, while white, non-His-panic female students had the lowest proportion of being at risk or overweight. (See Table 4.2.)

According to the same 2003 report, less than one-third of high school students participated in daily physical education at school. (See Table 4.3.) By comparison, 38% of all high school students watched three or more hours of television per school day. The number of African-American students watching three or more hours of television was more than double that of white students. (See Table 4.4.)

unhealthy attitudes toward weight among female students. In a paradoxical turn, as overweight rates for Americans climbed, many "waiflike," extremely thin women were featured in television, video, and fashion media aimed at youth. In their quest for acceptance and popularity, many adolescent and teenage females measured themselves by pop culture icons and felt fat, even if they were of normal weight for their height and build. The 2003 CDC report revealed that 36.1% of female high school students described themselves as over-weight, and 59.3% of female students reported that they were trying to lose weight. By contrast, 23.5% of male students saw themselves as overweight and 29.6% were trying to slim down. (See Table 4.5.)

Female teens were also more likely than males to engage in unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to lose weight. Twice as many female as male students had gone without eating for twenty-four hours or more, the CDC report found. Use of diet pills, powders, or liquids, without the advice of a doctor, increased with age among female students. About 9% of ninth-grade females tried these weight loss or weight prevention products compared to about 13% of eleventh- and twelfth-grade females. Among female students at all grade levels, more than 8% reported vomiting or taking laxatives to lose weight or prevent weight gain. (See Table 4.6.) In some cases females developed distorted self-images that led to a serious eating disorder called anorexia nervosa, defined as a refusal to maintain a minimally normal body weight. The American Psychiatric Association estimated that from .5% to 1% of women between ages fifteen and thirty suffered from anorexia.

TEEN SEXUALITY

By the late twentieth century, American teens were more sexually active than previous generations. While sexual activity was rare in young teens, it increased as teens grew older. By the age of seventeen, most teens reported at least one sexual experience. Concurrent with sexual activity were risks of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), pregnancy, and dropping out of school.

Sexual Risk Behaviors

The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the CDC found that 46.7% of teens in grades nine through twelve reported they had ever had sexual intercourse. Just 4.2% of all female students and 10.4% of male students reported their first sexual intercourse occurred before age thirteen. African-American teens were most sexually active. Compared to less than half of all teens who had ever had sexual intercourse, 60.9% of African-American females and 73.8% of males reported having ever had sexual inter-course. While 17.5% of all male teenagers reported they had four or more sexual partners during their lifetime, 41.7% of African-American males claimed four or more partners. (See Table 4.7.)

Risks of pregnancy and acquiring STDs were clearly on the minds of many teens. Almost two-thirds of high

TABLE 4.2

TABLE 4.3

school students reported having used condoms the last time they had sexual intercourse. More than one-fifth of female students reported using birth control pills.

Noncoital Behaviors

The growing perception among young people that noncoital behaviors (avoiding the actual physical union of male and female genitalia) were not "sex" placed more teens at risk. A study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit

TABLE 4.4

policy research organization based in Washington, D.C., showed that while 55% of teenage males stated they had had vaginal sex, two-thirds had experienced oral or anal sex or had been masturbated by a female.

Researchers and public health experts found that many young people perceived these noncoital behaviors as something other than sex—and sometimes even believed they were being sexually abstinent while participating in noncoital sexual behavior. While noncoital behaviors avoided the risk of pregnancy, teens engaged in these behaviors remained at risk for exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

TABLE 4.5

TABLE 4.6

TEEN PREGNANCY AND BIRTHS

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) tracks vital statistics in the United States. It found that between 1990 and 2002 the birth rate for all women under age thirty declined. For teenagers age fifteen to seventeen the rate dropped by nearly 40%, to 23.2 births per one thousand women. For older teens age eighteen to nineteen the birth rate declined by 18%, to 72.8 per one thousand women. (See Figure 4.5.) Other data from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics revealed that reduced adolescent birth rates were most significant among African-American teens. The 1991 rate of 86 per one thousand for African-American females age fifteen to seventeen declined to just 41 per one thousand in 2002.

Some analysts ascribed the declining pregnancy trend to the increasing use of birth control methods, especially longerlasting contraceptives such as Norplant and Depo-Provera. The increasing use of condoms due to fear of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases was also thought to contribute to the lower pregnancy rate. Other analysts, however, credited an increase in the practice of abstinence.

Many public-health experts believed that the factors that predisposed adolescents to drug use were the same ones that predisposed them to teen pregnancy—poverty, family dys-function, child abuse, and early education difficulties.

Of concern for all births was the increase in low birth weight babies (5.5 pounds or less). According to the CDC, at 7.0% in 1990, the incidence of low birth weight babies

TABLE 4.7

FIGURE 4.5

rose to 7.8% in 2002. This was not an issue specific only to teenage mothers. Besides prenatal care concerns, medical experts noted the increase in higher-order multiple births (greater than twins), which tended to lower the birth weight of all the infants.

YOUTH RISK BEHAVIORS

In 2003 the CDC reported that the leading causes of disease and death among adults were cardiovascular disease (39.4%) and cancer (23.5%). Among youth and young adults aged ten to twenty-four, almost three-quarters of all deaths resulted from just four causes: motor-vehicle crashes (32.3%), other unintentional injuries (11.7%), homicide (15.1%), and suicide (11.7%).

As early as 1991 the CDC identified six priority health-risk behaviors that were linked to disease and death among all age groups:

1. Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence
2. Tobacco use
3. Alcohol and other drug use
4. Sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
5. Unhealthy dietary behaviors
6. Physical inactivity and overweight

The CDC determined that health-risk behaviors were often established during youth and continued into adulthood. Furthermore, the CDC concluded that these behaviors were interrelated and preventable. As educational initiatives were developed to help youth change these behaviors, the CDC established methods, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), to monitor progress. This school-based, biennial survey tracked health-risk behaviors of students in grades nine through twelve.

Risk-Behavior for Leading Causes of Death among Youth

Results of the 2003 survey demonstrated that, during the thirty days preceding the survey, numerous high school students engaged in behaviors that increased their likelihood of death from one of the four causes: motor-vehicle crashes, other unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide. In addition, many students had developed health-risk behaviors that, if continued, could contribute to cardiovascular disease and cancer in their adult years. For example, 22% of high school students had smoked cigarettes, 78% had not eaten five or more servings per day of fruits and vegetables, 33% had participated in insufficient physical activity, and 14% were overweight.

Motor Vehicles, Seatbelts, and Alcohol

Motor-vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death in the ten to twenty-four age group in 2003. Alcohol and failure to use seatbelts were significant contributing factors. According to the 2003 YRBS, female students appeared to be less likely to ignore seat belt safety than male students. While 17.6% of ninth-grade females reported that they never or rarely used seatbelts when riding as a passenger in a car, just 10.9% of twelfth-grade females said they did not buckle up. Among male students, however, 22.9% of ninth graders and 21.1% of twelfth graders rarely or never wore seat belts as a passenger. Drinking and driving habits also differed among male and female students surveyed. Female students were more likely to ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol (31.1%) than to drive a vehicle after drinking (8.9%). An average 15% of male students admitted they had driven a car after drinking.

A related study by the HHS revealed that youth and young adults in the seventeen to twenty-four age range were most likely to drive a motor vehicle while under the

FIGURE 4.6

influence of illegal drugs. Seven percent of sixteen-yearolds reported using drugs and driving, while 18% of twenty-one-year-olds did, which was the highest out of all age groups. (See Figure 4.6.)

Fights and Weapons

Fighting and carrying weapons increased risks of unintentional injuries and homicides among students. In the 2003 YRBS, an average 25% of female students and 40.5% of male students reported they had been in one or more fights in the twelve months preceding the survey. As students matured, the number involved in fights decreased. While 31.9% of ninth-grade females and 44.8% of ninth-grade males reported being in fights, by twelfth grade only 17.7% of females and 35% of males were involved in fights. Injuries resulted from fights for 2.6% of female students and 5.7% of male students. Carrying a weapon was more common among male students (26.9%) than female students (6.7%). More specifically, only 1.6% of female students reported carrying a gun compared to 10.2% of male students. As students matured, carrying weapons became less frequent for female students but slightly more frequent for male students.

Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs

The YRBS revealed reductions in use of tobacco and alcohol among youth. The percentage of students who reported current cigarette smoking had dropped from a high of 36% in 1997 to 22% in 2003. There was little difference in cigarette use between male and female students. In the thirty days prior to the survey, 21.9% of female students and 21.8% of male students had smoked one or more cigarettes. While 75% of high school students had tried alcohol, 44.9% had one or more alcoholic drinks within the thirty days preceding the survey, and 28.3% had five or more drinks in a row during the same period. Just over 40% of students reported they had tried marijuana, while 22.4% reported current marijuana use.

Although 8.7% of all students reported they had tried some form of cocaine (including powder, "crack", or "freebase") at least once, only 4.1% reported current use. Just over 3% of students reported they had used a needle to inject illegal drugs. When asked about use of inhalants (sniffing glue, breathing paint, or breathing the contents of aerosol spray cans), 12.1% of students had experimented at least once and 3.9% reported current use. Just over 6% of students also reported they had used illegal steroids. Just over 3% of students had tried heroin at least once, 7.6% had tried methamphetamines, and 11.1% had tried ecstasy.

More than one-fourth of high school students experimented with drinking alcohol and close to one-fifth smoked at least one cigarette before age thirteen. Marijuana may have been less easily obtained, yet 10% of students tried that substance at young ages. A greater percentage of male than female students reported they had tried each of these substances prior to age thirteen.

Teen Suicide

The YRBS also studied depression among teens. Abandoning usual activities due to feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks was more common among female students (35.5%) than male students (21.9%). But when it came to seriously considering a suicide attempt or actually making a suicide plan, the gap between male and female narrowed, with 18.9% of girls and 14.1% of boys reported having made a suicide plan in the twelve months prior to responding to the YRBS. While the percentage of males who made a suicide plan was fairly constant at all grade levels, the proportion of female students who planned suicide declined steadily from 20.9% of ninth graders to 16.2% of twelfth graders. The decrease in actual suicide attempts by grade level was even more dramatic for female students. Among ninth-grade females 14.7% had attempted suicide during the twelve months preceding the survey compared to 6.9% of twelfth-grade females. About one-fourth of the suicide attempts reported by female students required medical attention. Less than half the percentage of male students (5.4%) attempted suicide compared to female students (11.5%) and the decrease in attempts by grade level was far less significant.

National Health Objectives

In January 2000 the HHS released a statement of national health objectives called Healthy People 2010. This comprehensive set of disease prevention and health promotion objectives was designed to guide the nation's health achievement over the first decade of the new century. Created by scientists both inside and outside of government, it identified a wide range of public health priorities and specific, measurable objectives. The results from the 2003 YRBS were measured against the Healthy People 2010 goals for youth. Some objectives had much room for improvement, such as the 28.4% of teens who participated in daily school physical education compared to the 2010 target of 50%. The proportion of teens who said they rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol had decreased to 30.2%, nearly matching the 30% target for 2010. Physical fighting among teens had also dropped to within one percentage point of the target.

CHILD VICTIMS OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT

According to the HHS report Child Maltreatment 2002, an estimated 896,000 children were victims of maltreatment in 2002. More than half of the reports alleging maltreatment of a child came from professionals—education, legal and law enforcement, social services, and medical personnel. The remainder of reports came from family members, neighbors, and other sources, including 9.6% from anonymous sources. Another 0.7% of reports came from alleged victims themselves.

Reports of alleged maltreatment were investigated by Child Protective Services to determine the validity of the allegation and a course of action. The HHS report tracks the number of reported cases assessed and the number in which children were determined to be victims from 1990–2002. During that period the number of children assessed rose 21.3%, while the number of children determined to be victims dropped 7.3%. The rate of all children who received an assessment or investigation increased from 36.1 per one thousand children in 1990 to 43.8 per one thousand children in 2002. Of reports alleging child maltreatment received in 2002, 60.5% were determined to be unsubstantiated.

The youngest children had the highest rate of victimization, according to the HHS report. Children under one year in age were most frequently victims of maltreatment (9.6%). From that age the victimization rate declined gradually from 6.2% for one-year-olds to 5.4% for ten-year-olds.

Half of all child victims were white (54.2%). (See Figure 4.7.) However, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that, when compared to the total number of children of the same race in the United States, American Indian or Alaska Native children had the highest rate of victimization (21.7 per one thousand children of the same race). African-American children were close behind at a rate of 20.2 per one thousand children of the same race. Asian and Pacific Islander children had the lowest rate at 3.7 per one thousand.

Parents as Perpetrators

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of child maltreatment was that more than 80% of perpetrators were parents, the HHS data revealed. Other relatives (6.6%) and unmarried partners of the parent (2.9%) were also perpetrators of abuse. Less than 1.5% of perpetrators were foster parents, daycare providers, or staff of residential facilities. An "other" category, which included camp counselors and school employees, accounted for 4.7% of perpetrators. Among the perpetrators, 58% were women. While parents were the primary perpetrators of all maltreatment, they were responsible for less than 3% of sexual abuse cases. Other relatives were responsible for 29% of sexual abuse, and nearly one-quarter of sexual abusers were nonrelatives and persons not in caregiving roles with the child.

Reports on child maltreatment grouped cases into six types: physical abuse, neglect, medical neglect, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, and other abuse. Figure 4.8 depicts five-year patterns of the six types of abuse. Clearly neglect (including medical neglect) was the most frequent type of child abuse, accounting for 60.5% of cases. Both physical abuse and sexual abuse cases showed some slight decreases since 1998.

Children were found to be victims of maltreatment in approximately 28% of cases investigated, the HHS report asserted. About one-fifth of child victims were placed in foster care. Other cases received a variety of support and monitoring services.

Child Fatalities

Child fatalities were the most tragic results of maltreatment. An estimated fourteen hundred children died from abuse or neglect in 2002. The overall child fatality rate due to abuse or neglect was two per one hundred thousand children—an increase from 1.84 per one hundred thousand in 2000. Three-quarters of these children were younger than four years of age. (See Figure 4.9.) Infant boys had a higher death rate (nineteen per one hundred

FIGURE 4.7

thousand boys of the same age) than infant girls (twelve per one hundred thousand). Consistent with the high rate of neglect among all maltreatment cases, one-third of all child fatalities were attributed to neglect. (See Figure 4.10.)

SCHOOL VIOLENCE

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2002, a joint report by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, revealed a 46% drop in violent crime victimization rates in schools from 1991 to 2000. According to the report, students were twice as likely to become victims of serious violent crime away from school than at school. However, violence, theft, bullying, drugs, and firearms continued to be problems in many schools.

Other data, reported in the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), found that between 1999 and 2001 the percentage of students who reported being bullied at school rose from 5% to 8%. In 2001 the greatest number of students (14%) reported bullying occurred in sixth grade. Bullying incidents declined to about 2% by twelfth grade. (See Figure 4.11.)

Eight percent of female high school students and 17.1% of male students reported being in a fight on school property in 2003, according to YRBS data. Fighting was more prevalent among ninth graders and decreased significantly in tenth through twelfth grades. About 5% of all high school students reported one or more days in which they did not go to school because of safety concerns. Almost 30% of all students reported having had property stolen or deliberately damaged at school. (See Table 4.8.)

FIGURE 4.8

Weapons in Schools

In the YRBS report, 6.1% percent of all high school students reported carrying a weapon on school property, and 9.2% said they had been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Male students in ninth grade were more likely to have been injured or threatened with a weapon (15.4%), while more than 10% of eleventh- and twelfth-grade males carried weapons. (See Table 4.9.)

Among high school students, 5.8% reported that they had used marijuana on school property. In addition, more than one-fourth of all high school students said they had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property during the past year. Hispanic male students had the highest rates in each category, both for marijuana use on school property (10.4%) and if they had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property (40.6%). (See Table 4.10.)

Violence against Teachers

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2002 also considered the safety of teachers. In the 1999–2000 school year, 305,000 (9%) of all elementary and secondary school teachers were threatened with injury by a student, and 135,000 (4%) were physically attacked by a student. From 1996 through 2000, teachers were victims of more than one million thefts and 599,000 violent crimes (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault) at school. In 2001 forty-nine senior and junior high teachers per one thousand were victims of violent crimes at school—mostly simple assaults—compared to

FIGURE 4.9

fifteen elementary teachers per one thousand. Urban teachers were twice as likely as rural teachers to be victims of violence at school—thirty-six per one thousand compared to seventeen per one thousand.

Other Factors Contributing to Violence

In a 2000 report titled Youth Gangs in Schools from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of Justice, one-half of teens surveyed said there were guns in their homes and about half

FIGURE 4.10

FIGURE 4.11

said it was at least somewhat important to know how to shoot a gun. Six percent of teens surveyed said it was very or somewhat important to belong to a gang or "posse." Thirty-seven percent of students reported there was a gang presence at their school.

Decline in Juvenile Violence

The level of juvenile violence in America during the 1980s and early 1990s caused predictions of a national crisis of violent youth. According to a 2002 report by the Urban Institute, the number of juvenile arrests for violent crimes—murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—rose 64% between 1980 and 1994. The tide turned in 1994, and by 2000 arrests for violent crimes by all age groups had declined significantly. Arrests for murder declined most significantly for the under-eighteen age group (71%) and the eighteen to twenty-four age group (41%).

TABLE 4.8

Juvenile violent crimes declined more than crimes by young adults and older adults. Between 1994 and 2000 juvenile arrests for all types of offenses dropped 13%. Juvenile arrests for violent crimes dropped 34%, and arrests for property violations decreased 31%. During that same period, however, juvenile arrests for driving under the influence rose 54%, violation of liquor laws rose 33%, and drug abuse violations rose 29%.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2002 more than 877,700 young people ages ten to twenty-four were injured from violent acts. Approximately one in thirteen required hospitalization. Homicide was the second-leading cause of death among young people ages ten to twenty-four overall. In 2001, 5,486 young people ages ten to twenty-four were murdered—an average of fifteen each day—and 79% were killed with firearms.

The CDC identified youth violence as a complex public health problem, describing it as widespread and highly visible, but preventable. The May 2002 World Report on Violence and Health [serial online] noted that, in addition to causing injury and death, youth violence undermined communities by increasing the cost of health care, reducing productivity, decreasing property values, and disrupting social services.

TABLE 4.9

TABLE 4.10