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Colton Robinson

Dr. Kocian

Juvenile Justice

4/14/16

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Programs that prevent juvenile delinquency are important factors in the criminal justice

system. There are programs that help reduce problems that start while individuals are in the

juvenile age range. There are many types of programs that serve in multiple categories of

juvenile delinquency. An example of this would be D.A.R.E. to reduce drug and alcohol use.

However, I will be talking about a different program called STRYVE. This stands for Striving

To Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere. This is a method of preventing violence from a young

age. Travis Hirschi created the Social Bond Theory that corresponds with youth violence.

Youth violence consists of bonds or lack of bonds that cause them to act in this behavior. The

overall goal of STRYVE is to reduce the amount of youth violence in today’s society. The

program suggests various strategies to overcome this epidemic of violence starting at a young

age.

As directed, STRYVE is a juvenile delinquency program aimed towards preventing youth

violence. Before explaining about STRYVE itself, I would like to explain what youth violence

is and why it needs to be brought to the attention of the public. “Youth violence refers to harmful

behaviors that can start early and continue into young adulthood. The young person can be a

victim, an offender, or a witness to the offender.” (“Youth Violence,” 2015). This is saying that

youth violence is one behaving with physical or verbal violence and that if their behavior is not

handled correctly or early enough, violence can be carried into adulthood. According to notes in

class, if one has a violent childhood, they are more likely to be violent as an adult. “Youth

violence, especially school violence and bullying among children, has emerged as a major focus

for educators, psychologists, and human service workers everywhere.” (Englander, 2007, pg. 1).

In reference to (Massetti & Vivolo, 2010) the main concern with youth violence is that “violence

is a leading cause of death and disability for U.S. youth”.

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Now that youth violence has been explained, why is this a concern that needs awareness?

“STRYVE and other programmatic efforts require better scientific information regarding how to

best support the scale-up of evidence-based approaches, and build prevention infrastructure and

capacity in communities to allow sustainability.” (Haegerich, Gorman-Smith, Wiebe, 2010). I

found different statistics and tables of information that shows violence upon juveniles should be

looked into as much as possible. One helpful article I found interesting listed three facts about

the significance of youth violence. The first is that homicide is the second leading cause of death

for ages 15-24. Second, there was a study done in 2010 that found 738,000 people ages 10-24

were taken to the emergency room from violence. In the same study, 30% of kids said they have

been in at least one physical fight and 20% of the kids questioned said they have been bullied on

school property. The third study conducted lead to the evidence of Americans spending over

16.2 billion dollars in medical and work costs loss in only one year from people 10-24 being

involved in homicides or physical injuries. (“Youth Violence Prevention at CDC,” 2013). This

data was found to express the significance youth violence has in public health. In a study done

by (Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2003) they found victimization rates of

teenagers in 2004 were more than double those of individuals over age 25. As talked about in

class, the juvenile age range is the prime time in someone’s life that they commit violent crimes.

So this should not be a shock that the rate for teenagers were much higher than at age 25 but at

the same time, this expresses why preventing violence at such a young age is necessary. “In one

study, 1 in 10 juveniles admitted hitting their parents. Among peers, Duncan (1999) found that

28% of 375 American children surveyed admitted being bullied.” (Englander, 2007). Using this

data found in these conducted studies and surveys, youth violence is seen as an epidemic that

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needs assistance in preventing it from growing. To further the knowledge of youth violence over

time I found this chart:

(Blumstein, 1995).

This chart helps show the homicide rates of 14-17 year old males over 16 years.

Homicide is a huge category in youth violence so I think it deserved to be looked at. At the time

range this study was done, it shows that there was a major increase in violence into the early

1990s. One reason this may be would be for the fact it was at the time of the War on Drugs.

This historical event would influence the rate dramatically, but it also shows that there could be a

jump in juvenile violence if there were another event to take place and even though it has been

decreasing recently, it may not always continue to go down in growth.

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(“STRYVE Online Data Tools,” 2013)

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In the tables above, one can see how youth violence can be shown over different types of

communities. Using STRYVE Online Data Tools, data is used to define a community’s

boundaries so they can predict what sort of planning they need to construct to prevent any youth

violence in the area. The three tables shown can help explain by breaking down the indicator,

measure, geographic location type, and data source. This helps in planning different programs

that can help prevent violence depending on the location and types of resources they have.

Briefly, I would like to talk about the individuals that take part in youth violence. The

average age for the offenders are 10-24, often times in the teenager years. According to the

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, there are three major behavioral

characteristics that are correlated with later violent behavior. The first is hyperactivity. This is

the problem with concentration and being in a restless state. The second characteristic is

aggressiveness. Being aggressive from ages 6-13 predict that males will be violent at later ages.

Lastly, beliefs and attitudes favorable to deviant or antisocial behavior. Being dishonest,

antisocial, and hostility toward police predict later violence. (Thompson, Bynum, 2010).

I have covered what youth violence is and the part it plays in society. The definition,

individual characteristics, and data was presented to demonstrate why the topic is relevant in the

community over time. What is STRYVE and how is STRYVE a program that can help with this

situation? STRYVE is a guide to lead away from violence portrayed by the youth. Striving To

Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere is a division of the Centers of Disease Control and

Prevention. Youth violence has been a problem with concern over time. In the late 1990s,

multiple school shootings grabbed the attention of the media. This violence in school setting

leads to believe the violence of the youth was becoming more of a problem. This youth violence

was influencing reduced productivity, property value, and social services in negative ways. In

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1999, the White House established the Council on Youth Violence to try to contain juvenile

violence. Another service produced in 2004 was the National Youth Violence Prevention

Resource Center. This was created by the CDC and was web accessible. Later in 2007, this

program produced information that could be implemented strategies in communities. The next

two years consisted of the CDC talking to other experts and other agencies to create safer

communities. They wanted to use practices that could prevent the violence before it took place

rather than the impacts that it could leave. This is to stop violence from happening in the first

place instead of waiting to deal with the consequences. STRYVE and STRYVE Online are

outcomes of the CDC working with others. They are both used to understand how to use

different strategies to prevent youth violence. Now they continue to provide information to

effectively deal with national, state, and community level activities. (Injury Prevention &

Control, n.d.).

STRYVE came from the origins of school shootings and is now trying to improve

communities by preventing the violence from happening in the beginning. Now that STRYVE

has grown to the level it is at, what exactly is STRYVE? “STRYVE is a national initiative led

by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention

and Control (NCIPC), Division of Violence Prevention (DVP).” (David-Ferdon, Simon, p.4;

2012). STRYVE is to keep the youth in a safe and healthy environment to reach their full

potential. For their full potential to be achieved, STRYVE consists of main goals for their

program. The first goal is “Increase public health leadership in preventing youth violence.” This

goal is meant to make the public realize the problem of youth violence. This is something that

occurs and needs to be brought to attention. Youth violence is a public safety concern and there

should be an awareness that it can and should be prevented. The next goal is to promote youth

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violence prevention with the best data available. There needs to be data available to prove this is

a problem that needs to be taken seriously. Evidence and statistics need to be up to date and

accurate to show there is enough reason that violence needs to be prevented. Show what

consequences there are with youth violence so people understand why this is an issue that needs

to be taken care of. A third objective of STRYVE is to provide guidance to communities on

how to prevent youth violence. This is very important because this is actually taking steps

towards preventing violence. This goal is trying to come up with strategies and activities to draw

away youth violence. This is the step where they ask themselves, “How do we stop this?” and

brainstorm ideas they can test and spread them to other communities if they seem to have

positive results. These are suggestions that may help a community overcome youth violence

depending on their area and situations. Finally, the last goal is to generally reduce national youth

violence. (Injury Prevention & Control, n.d.).

To describe this juvenile delinquency program, I believe Social Bond Theory is the best

representative. Social Bond Theory was created by Travis Hirschi. This theory states that

people have needs and desires and sometimes committing a crime is the easiest way to obtain

those needs. We are born animalistic in nature. There are four social bonds between the

individual and society. The first is attachment, which is the emotional and psychological

connection you feel towards others and care how others care about you. The second bond is

commitment. Commitment is how much you have invested in society, whether it is money, time,

or relationship. Involvement is the next bond, which deals with what you do in your free time

such as volunteer work or family activities. The last bond in society is belief. Belief is the

acceptance of a conventional value system. As you build these bonds, connection with society is

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strengthened. When you look at the four bonds of this theory, attachment is the strongest bond

that an individual has within society (Chriss, J.J., 2007).

The way to connect this program to Social Bond Theory is through the bonds one has

with society. STRYVE portrays different ways they connect to each other. There are various

key components to STRYVE. I would like to mention the components of taking public health

into account, with the fact that STRYVE is a multi-sector by sharing responsibilities in

organizations, and building capacity within communities. The major component is that

STRYVE is comprehensive. The categories of this component include strengthen the personal

capacity of youth to resist violence, build and support positive relationships between youth and

adults, promote striving, safer, and more connected communities, and to create a society that

promotes safety and health (Key Components of STRYVE, 2012). There are many various ways

that these bonds could be met. The ones who are the offenders of youth violence often lack these

bonds they require with other individuals and society. To reduce youth violence these bonds

need to be strengthened. As I stated, attachment is the most defined bond. Again, attachment is

the emotional connection with others. One major suggestion within STRYVE is parenting skill

and family relationship programs. STRYVE stresses these programs so that the youth generation

builds a relationship with those around them and allows them to realize they should care how he

cares for others and how they care for them. The programs teach the juvenile skills such as

communication, problem solving, and behavioral management. Some ways to strengthen this

bond would be having family dinners or something as simple going to the playground as a

family. Next is commitment and how much they have invested in society. The importance with

this is that they are less likely to commit violent acts if they have time, money, or status in

society and are more worried about losing what they already put in through their life. Examples

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of commitment would be playing a sport. Playing a sport could also relieve the violence they

have in them by exerting it when it is necessary and allowed rather than against someone who is

defenseless. Other commitments they may possess would be a job, an intimate relationship, or

focus on school work with goals of better grades. Thirdly, the involvement of what you do in

your free time is a bond required. Possible achievements for this would be volunteer work for

the community, family activities, or taking up a hobby such as reading or fishing. STRYVE

consists of programs of street outreach and community mobility. These approaches are meant to

interrupt youth violence by putting their focus on something that could help the environment or

others. Belief is another important bond to fortify. Belief is having an acceptance of a

conventional value system. Religion is a significant factor in these bonds also. Having

something to believe in will allow one to come to terms with what is considered right and wrong

in society. STRYVE suggests juveniles joining programs such as church youth groups. This will

allow one to learn more about beliefs and having a balanced value system to keep them from

getting into trouble that could negatively impact their life. Below is a table I found to represent

different activities, suggestions, and youth violence protective factors STRYVE expresses for the

individual and society. (Key Components of STRYVE, 2012).

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Although I think Social Bond Theory is the most relevant criminological theory to

STRYVE, I believe there are certain elements of other theories I would like to make a note of.

These are theories I felt had some support for STRYVE but did not corresponded as much to

Social Bond Theory. One other possible theory I could see some evidence is Rational Choice

Theory created by Cornish and Clark. The steps of this theory are crime has a purpose and not

accidental, offenders do not always make the best decisions, crime specificity, and length of

crime. I thought of this theory for the fact that violence would not be accidental. You do not

accidentally bully a fellow student. Also, juveniles committing youth violence have limited

rationality. Lastly, length of crime deals with initiation, continuation, and desistance. Youth

violence would put up the argument of initiation being early in life and continuation if the

behavior proceeds to exist (Levin, Milgrom, 2004). Another theory I saw applicable to

STRYVE would be General Theory of Crime by Gottfredson and Hirshi. This theory is the

conception that self-control corresponds with deviance, crime, recklessness, and sin. Another

aspect of the General Theory of Crime is parental management to monitor the child, identify bad

behavior, and correct it. I felt this theory had support for STRYVE as most juveniles that are

offenders of violence have low self-control, leading to deviance and crime. Also, many taking

action in youth violence did not have parental management and behavior being corrected when

needed (Armeklev, Elis, Medlicott, 2006). These theories had components that could connect to

STRYVE but I did not find there to be nearly as much evidence to explain the correspondence as

I received from Social Bond Theory.

As the last section to this paper, I want to talk about effectiveness of this program

changing the problem. Personally, I feel STRYVE is a very effective juvenile delinquency

program. I believe this because I think using the Social Bond Theory has a real connection to

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improving prevention of youth violence. Using the principles of the Social Bond Theory,

strengthening the bonds seem to coordinate with preventing youth violence from happening in

the first place or it reduces it before it becomes more influenced. Many children are helped each

year by STRYVE for both the individual and protecting society as a whole. Addressing the

prevention method and theoretical cause throughout this paper, I am convinced that the Social

Bond Theory defines STRYVE and its effectiveness in the community. One way I think it has

success is that it knows what to look for in the individual, their family, and their community. I

found a table that listed the risk factors and I believe this has a large impact on how STRYVE

was able to succeed in reducing youth violence.

(Key Components of STRYVE, 2012).

Research I found on STRYVE also helps me understand that it is a program that is

successful. According to (“Youth Violence Prevention at CDC,” 2013), there is support from

major academic centers for preventing youth violence. John Hopkins University and The

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Virginia Commonwealth University both have programs meant to reduce youth violence. When

using STRYVE programs such as SafeStreets and Ceasefire, they found decreases in youth

violence as they interrupt violence, shootings, and changes norms of acceptability of violence.

Also there was a major decrease in the number of retaliation killing amongst juveniles. The

Business Improvement Districts found there to be a drop in violent crimes in Los Angeles.

There was a 32% decrease in police arrests, 12% decrease in robbery rates, and violent crimes

overall declined by 8%. Another source I found that implied the program was effective was

(“Minneapolis Creates Blueprint to Prevent Youth Violence”, 2011). This followed the violence

crime rates of Minneapolis over time to record if STRYVE had any influence. According to the

study of Minneapolis, they approached the situation by getting juveniles into things that were not

violent such as having a job or hobby. They worked on family relations and school communities

too. These changes set a framework for their success. After recording the data over a few years,

they saw a 28% drop in juvenile suspects from 2008-2010. Similarly declining, the juvenile

arrest rates went down by 18.4% in the span of two years.

More sources that fueled my support for STRYVE programs are their pilot communities.

These are communities that took the goals of STRYVE and applied them to surrounding areas

and recorded the drop in violent crime that occurred after the principles of STRYVE took place.

Some of these pilot communities are Boston Public Health Commission, Houston Department of

Health and Human Services, Monterey County Health Department, and Multnomah County

Health Department. They all found positive feedback after enacting STRYVE and continue to

use STRYVE’s concepts of preventing youth violence. (“STRYVE Pilot Communities”, 2014).

I chose this program for the fact that I believe that youth violence prevention is important

to better individuals and the society. I wanted to research something that could potentially better

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the future lives of millions of people. After researching this topic, I found that it was a

prevention method that could be effective and I examined the problem it was attempting to fix.

STRYVE had main goals it wanted to achieve to reduce youth violence. The factors it possessed

in planning the steps to recovery lead me to believe it corresponded to the Social Bond Theory

by Hirschi. I saw links between the STRYVE program and the theory itself to support how there

was effectiveness in preventing violence among the juvenile age range. Many sources helped

support the theory and juvenile delinquency action taking place. The statistics being recording in

specific areas, public health issue departments, and academic centers standing behind them over

time support the success of this given subject. Studying all the factors needed to decide on my

opinion of this program leads me to see enough evidence to believe this is a delinquency

program needed to increase success rates of preventing youth violence around the world.

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Works Cited:

*Arneklev, B. J., Elis, L., & Medlicott, S. (2006). Western Criminology Review.Testing the General

Theory of Crime: Comparing the Effects of “Imprudent Behavior” and an Attitudinal Indicator of “Low

Self-Control”. Retrieved from http://www.westerncriminology.org/documents/WCR/v07n3/arneklev.pdf

* Blumstein, A.. (1995). Youth Violence, Guns, and the Illicit-Drug Industry. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 86(1), 10–36. http://doi.org/10.2307/1143998

*Chriss, J. J. (2007, Fall). The Function of the Social Bond. Retrieved from

http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=clsoc_crim_facpub

*Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2003: Statistical Tables. Bureau of Justice Statistics [2005].

Available from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus03.pdf.

*David-Ferdon, C., & Simon, T. R. (2012). Striving To Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere (STRYVE):

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Initiative to Prevent Youth Violence

Foundational Resource. STRYVE Foundational Resource, 1-36. Retrieved from

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/stryve_foundational_resource-a.pdf

* Englander, E. K. (2007). Understanding violence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

* Haegerich, T. M., Gorman-Smith, D., & Wiebe, D. J. (2010, October 4). Advancing research in youth violence prevention to inform evidence-based policy and practice. Retrieved from https://savir.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/articles/2010_october__inj_prev.pdf

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*Injury Prevention & Control: Division of Violence Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/apps/stryve/about_stryve.html

* Key Components of STRYVE. (2012, August). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/stryve_2_pager-final_2012-a.pdf

*Levin, J., & Milgrom, P. (2004). An Introduction to Rational Choice Theory.Rational Choice and Politics : A Critical Introduction. http://web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%20202/Choice%20Theory.pdf doi:10.5040/9781474213141.ch-001

* Massetti, G. M., & Vivolo, A. M. (2010, February 18). Achieving Public Health Impact in Youth

Violence Prevention Through Community–Research Partnerships. Retrieved from

http://ncys.ksu.edu.sa/sites/ncys.ksu.edu.sa/files/Violence%2054.pdf

*Minneapolis Creates Blueprint to Prevent Youth Violence. (2011, September). Retrieved from https://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/apps/stryve/CommunitiesInAction_minneapolis.html

* STRYVE Online Data Tools. (2013, November). Retrieved from http://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/apps/stryvestrategy/sites/all/themes/stryve_bs/css/images/03Using%20Data.pdf

*STRYVE Pilot Communities. (2014, October 8). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/stryve/pilotcommunities.html

* Thompson, W. E., Bynum, J. E., & Bynum, J. E. (2010). Juvenile delinquency: A sociological

approach. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

*Wiatrowski, M. D., Griswold, D. B., & Roberts, M. K.. (1981). Social Control Theory and

Delinquency.American Sociological Review, 46(5), 525–541. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094936

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* Youth Violence. (2015, December 18). Retrieved from

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/index.html

* Youth Violence Prevention at CDC. (2013, May). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/youth-violence-accomplishments-a.pdf