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Interventions to Prevent Youth Violence

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Handbook of Injury and Violence Prevention

This chapter summarizes research on interventions to reduce or prevent the perpetration of youth violence. Youth violence is defined broadly to include acts of interpersonal aggression, ranging in seriousness from crimes against individuals (e.g., robbery, assault) to aggressive behaviors, such as hitting, bullying, and, for younger students, biting and hurling objects at others. This definition explicitly includes aggressive acts of younger children that have been shown to be precursors of later, more serious and violent delinquency (see Tolan and Gorman-Smith [1998] for a summary of such precursors). By defining youth violence to include these precursor behaviors, we are able to consider a broader array of early prevention intervention strategies targeting these earlier behaviors.

The chapter begins with a description of youth violence and a brief history of interventions to reduce it. It then provides a broad-brush snapshot of the types of interventions that have been studied for effects of youth violence and related outcomes, including brief descriptions of the most effective approaches. It concludes with implications for future prevention research and public health practice and policy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 21104

    Denise C. Gottfredson PhD (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice) & Erin L. Bauer (Fellow)

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  1. Denise C. Gottfredson PhD
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  2. Erin L. Bauer
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Correspondence to Denise C. Gottfredson PhD or Erin L. Bauer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Atlanta, GA, 30341, USA

    Lynda S. Doll , Sandra E. Bonzo , David A. Sleet  & James A. Mercy , ,  & 

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Gottfredson, D.C., Bauer, E.L. (2008). Interventions to Prevent Youth Violence. In: Doll, L.S., Bonzo, S.E., Sleet, D.A., Mercy, J.A. (eds) Handbook of Injury and Violence Prevention. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29457-5_9

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