YOUTH VIOLENCE – The annihilation of a generation, Part II

7th November 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Michael Radcliff
Contributing Writer

The Halloween Carnage

“Between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. on October 31 and November 1, there were five separate shootings in the city of New Orleans,” explained Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “There were 16 people shot, 14 injured and two killed.

“This is a clarion call not just for New Orleans, but for the entire nation,” the mayor continued. “Young African-American males being killed at the hands of other young African- American males – is a national tragedy. It’s unnatural and it has to stop.”

“What we have here is a culture of violence,” he went on to say. “A lot of killings in this city are not the conventional murders you normally see in urban areas. Many of these incidents occur as a result of often petty arguments, often amongst friends, getting out of hand, resulting in one or both parties resorting to guns to settle the conflict. We need to get better. We can’t stop this without a change in culture… [At one time] It used to end with a fist fight.”

“The city is working to find ways to catch young people during their formative years and teach them the conflict-resolution skills many are lacking,” James Carter, the newly appointed crime commissioner and former city councilman said last week.

“I think we’ve probably lost at least one generation of African-American males from the age of 18 to 25,” declared Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge (Terry) Alarcon, “They’re lost … They didn’t have a chance. It’s easier to get guns now, however that is. The people who used to settle things with fists now settle things with guns. This city has suffered from a lack of proper funding in a bunch of areas — recreation, education, criminal justice.

“And,” Alarcon continued, “you’re asking police officers to be psychiatrists, social workers, lawyers and judges. The educational system is floundering… By the time they get to us, the story’s pretty much written.”

“The epidemic is that young people are getting guns,” City Councilmember Susan Guidry said. “They’re getting guns very easily and they’re using them. And if you ask them they’re telling you they have to have a gun to protect them from each other, and they’re scared. They’re too young to have a lethal weapon.”

Echoing Mayor Landrieu’s assessment, NOPD Superin­tendent Ronal Serpas said petty disputes that end with young men killing one another are “unnatural and unacceptable.”

The Halloween shootings began shortly after 8 p.m. when a 16-year-old was shot in the leg on South Pierce St; a little over an hour later, 19-year-old Joshua Lewis made the fatal mistake of accidentally bumping into 24-year-old Baltiman Malcom on the corner of Canal Street and University Place. A fight ensued and ended when Malcom pulled out a gun and shot over 30 rounds, killing young Lewis and wounding three other people. About an hour later, on Bourbon St. 25-year-old Albert Glover, who was initially pegged as being one of two shooters, was killed, according to a number of his friends and family members who witnessed the murder. Glover was reportedly killed after stopping to talk with a woman and an unknown African-American male glared at him. When Glover glared back at the man, the gunman opened fire on him, killing him, injuring the woman and a number of innocent bystanders.

“He [Albert] lost his life because of eye contact,” explained his aunt, Angela Ratliff-Waxter. Glover’s father, Arthur Gray, tragically was also a victim of Black-on-Black murder, as his best friend shot and killed him when young Albert was a little over a year old.

Later on Halloween night, two young African-American men got out of a car on Spain St. and were immediately attacked by the shooters from another car. Both survived the attack and are expected to make a full recovery..

The Role of Alcohol, Drugs and Rap Music…in Youth Violence .

According to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s report on Youth Violence and Alcohol, “Alcohol use directly affects cognitive and physical function. Hazardous alcohol use can reduce self-control and the ability to process incoming information and assess risks, and can increase emotional ability and impulsivity, to make certain drinkers more likely to resort to violence in confrontation. Additionally, reduced physical control and ability to recognize warning signs in potentially dangerous situations can make some drinkers easy targets for perpetrators.”

In essence, underage drinking is not only a risk factor for the perpetrators who commit violent acts, but also a risk factor for victims of youth violence. All too often, being a victim or even witness of violence can lead to youth using alcohol to cope as a form of self medication. Alcohol and youth violence are inextricably linked ritualistically as part of youth gang cultures as well as an initiation into adulthood. In a community sample of 18– to 30-year-olds in the United States, almost 25 percent of men and 12 percent of women had experienced some form of violence or aggression in or around a licensed bar during the previous year. Furthermore, it has been determined that crowded and poorly managed bars add to an increase in aggressive behavior among young drinkers.

In a recent study, conducted by the Institute of Youth Develop­ment, four out of five of the teens questioned admitted using alcohol before entering college; nearly half admitted to using alcohol by the time they entered the eighth grade. Drawing a direct correlation to children afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome, or pre-natal exposure to alcohol, the WHO report underscores the long-term affects on these young victims experiencing behavioral and social problems, including delinquent behavior which in turn contributes to keeping the cycle of violence continuing well into the next generation.

According to a SAMSHA (the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) report titled “Youth Violence and Illicit Drug Use,” “Youths aged 12 to 17 who used an illicit drug in the past year were almost twice as likely to have engaged in a violent behavior as those who did not use an illicit drug.” Nearly half the adolescents surveyed by SAMSHA who used marijuana or inhalants in the past year engaged in violent behavior, as opposed to nearly 70 percent of those who used methamphetamines. More than half of today’s teens will have used drugs by the time they graduate from high school.

A study conducted by Howell and Decker entitled “The Youth Gangs, Drugs and Violence Connection” concluded that “Because the growth in youth gang violence coincided with the crack cocaine epidemic, the two developments were generally perceived to be interrelated. This same conclusion was reached in assessments conducted at all governmental levels, suggesting that youth gangs were instrumental in the increase in crack cocaine sales and that their involvement in drug trafficking resulted in a growth in youth violence.”

Additionally, more alarmingly, recent trends have shown that girls and young women are using illicit drugs at earlier ages, nearly as early as boys. Due primarily to the physiological differences between the sexes, substance use often turns into abuse and/or addiction more rapidly in girls and young women, than that of their male counterparts; even when using less of the illicit drug. While girls and young women use drugs for different reasons than their male counterparts, they ultimately pay a higher price in terms of consequences, ranging from depression, being sexually abused or assaulted, to a significantly higher rate of suicide.

Very few argue that rap music is a powerful influence and rappers are very powerful role models; and a recent study by the Prevention Research Center of Berkeley, Calif., concluded that young people who listen to rap and hip hop are more likely to abuse alcohol and commit violent acts. Yet one must concede that Americans have always to an extent been obsessed with violence. Americans have glorified the likes of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Al Capone, John Dillinger, the Dapper Don, to the fictional Tony Soprano. So the argument of to what extent rap music exerts a greater influences remains to be debated.

However in the context of the marketing of alcoholic beverages has recently come under fire, as marketers have shown a correlation of rap music and their corresponding videos and an increase in sales of alcohol beverages mentioned in these songs. Violence and alcoholism has proven to be a toxic mix for youth.

Interestingly, African-American youth, who historically drink considerably less than youth in general, are continuously deluged with advertisements for beer and other distilled spirits aimed solely at this demographic. A recent survey found that African-American youth ages 12 to 20 were exposed to 66 percent more advertising for beer and 81 percent more advertising for distilled spirits; with the most intensive campaigns promoting the cognacs and brandies, which have become synonymous with hip hop and rap. The continuing growth of violence in young people across the board — not just African-American youth, but young people across America — demonstrates succinctly that the mix of violence and alcohol can have deadly repercussions,

Who are the Victims of Youth Violence?

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin­quency Prevention, “Between 1980 and 2008, an estimated 55,810 juveniles were murdered in the United States – 1,709 in 2008. In 2008, 30 percent of murdered juveniles were female, 47 percent were Black, and 50 percent were killed with a firearm; of the juvenile murder victims with known offenders in 2006, 39 percent were killed by family members, 47 percent by acquaintances, and 14 percent by strangers. About one in five reported murders of juveniles in 2008 occurred in just five of the nation’s more than 3,000 counties and the major cities in these five counties (beginning with the city in the county with the most murdered juveniles) are Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Houston and Baltimore. In 2008, about 86 percent of the 3,141 counties in the U.S. had no reported murders of juveniles, eight percent had one, and seven percent had two or more.

Murder is most common among the oldest and the youngest juveniles. In 2008, 39 percent of juvenile murder victims were under age six and 46 percent were ages 15 to 17. Of the estimated 1,709 juveniles murdered in 2008, 39 percent were under age six, seven percent were ages six to 11, eight percent were ages 12 to 14, and 46 percent were ages 15 to 17. However, the characteristics of juvenile murder victims vary with age. In 2008, a substantially larger proportion of victims under age were killed by family members than victims ages 15 to 17 (56% vs. 4%). Another major difference between the murder of older and younger juveniles was the relative involvement of firearms. In 2008, firearms were used in 15 percent of murders of juveniles under age 12 but 81 percent of the murders of juveniles ages 12 to 17. At the point of greatest risk (the top of the highest peak), are 19- and 20-year-olds killing 19- and 20-year-olds. Many very young children are killed by persons in their 20s and 30s — mostly incidents of infants being killed by their parents. Adult offenders tend to kill victims in their own age group

Males account for the largest share of juvenile homicide victims, but the female proportion has grown since the mid 1990s. In 2008, females accounted for 30 percent of all juvenile murder victims, down from 36 percent in 2002. Until their teenage years, boys and girls are equally likely to be murdered. Between 1980 and 2008, the annual numbers of male and female homicide victims were very similar for victims at each age under 13. However, older victims were disproportionately male. For example, between 1980 and 2008, 84 percent of murdered 17-year-olds were male.

While homicide is the second-leading cause of death for the 15- to 24-year-old segment of the population, it is the leading cause of death for African-American youth in this category. Black youth accounted for about 16 percent of the juvenile population between 1980 and 2008, but were the victims in 47 percent of juvenile homicides during the 29-year period. In the early 1980s, the homicide rate for Black juveniles was four times the rate for white juveniles. This disparity in­creased so that by 1993 the Black rate was six times the white rate. The relatively greater decline in Black juvenile homicides bet­ween 1993 and 2002 (down 52 percent, compared with a 36 percent decline for whites) dropped the disparity in Black-to-white homicide rates back to 4-to-1, before increasing slightly in the years from 2003 through 2008. About half (49%) of juvenile murder victims in 2008 were white, 47 percent were Black, and three percent were either American Indian or Asian.

Older juveniles are more likely to be killed by a firearm than younger juveniles. Between 1980 and 2008, at least three of every four (78%) murder victims ages 15 to 17 were killed with a firearm, compared with one of every 10 (10%) murder victims ages 0–5. In 2008, firearms were used in 15 percent of the murders of juveniles under age 12 but in 80 percent of the murders of juveniles ages 12 to 17.

Older juvenile victims (ages 15 to 17) of nonfatal violence were more likely than younger victims (ages 12 to 14) to have been victimized by a stranger (41% vs. 32%) and less likely to have been victimized by an acquaintances (45% vs. 58%).

More than half (53%) of nonfatal violent crimes against younger juveniles occurred at a school. Younger juveniles were slightly less likely than older juveniles to be victimized at home (15% vs. 17%). In contrast, violent crimes with juvenile victims peaked between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., fell to a lower level in the early evening, and declined substantially after 9 p.m. Robbery victimizations for persons under age 18 reach their highest levels between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Aggravated assault victimizations of juveniles peak between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Most victims of violent juvenile offenders were themselves juveniles, and most victims of violent adult offenders were age 18 or older. Juveniles were the majority of offenders for violent crime victims ages eight to 15 only. About one in eight violent crime victims of juvenile offenders (5% + 7%) and adult offenders (1% + 11%) was a stranger, while almost half (48%) of the victims of juvenile crime were juveniles who were acquaintances of the offenders.”

Editor’s Note: In the third and final installment of this series, The Louisiana Weekly will examine effective strategies in the prevention of youth violence.

This article was originally published in the November 7, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper