TUGASAN

PAIRING ASSIGMENT

TOPIC:

YOUTH VIOLENCE

PB30903

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY

[SEMESTER 1-2021/2022]

FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN DAN PSIKOLOGI

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SABAH

ALEXTER NOEL JONNY BP19110413 (HA16)

LEE YI TING BP19110204 (HA16)

DR. NORSHIMAH DASAN

DISEMBER 12, 2021

Introduction
The topic that we are going to discuss in this paper is youth violence. It is one
of the serious issues that constantly brings great concerns to the society, and for many
years, a lot of attention had been given to it. By definition, youth violence refers to
the use of physical force or power that is intended to cause threat or harm to other
people, by the group of youths with ages ranging from 10 to 24 (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2021). Before going deeper into the issue of youth violence,
we must first acknowledge that it is a big and general topic. Basically, when talking
about youth violence, there are two other terms often come with it, and let us get
clear about them above all. The first term is antisocial behaviour, which refers to any
behaviour that is in conflict with the norms of society, that is how its name implies.
The second term is delinquency, which generally refers to the action of violating the
laws. Normally, violence is often involved in both delinquency and antisocial behaviour
(McWhirter et al., 2017), hence we may apply these terms interchangeably in the
following sections.

Basically, we can classify youth violence based on its purpose or target. There
are three purposes with which violence can serve (Seifert, 2012). The first is violence
with instrumental purpose. There is often plan to be followed and goal to be achieved
behind this category of violence. To put it simply, the violence acts as an instrument
in achieving such goals as money and power. The second one is situational purpose.
This category of violence is unplanned and is driven by uncontrollable emotions. The
lack of self-regulation and coping skills may lead to such violence, which is dependable
on the situation, but not goal-oriented. The last one is predatory purpose. Unlike the
first one, this kind of violence has only a certain goal to achieve, that is, causing harm
to others or dominating them, like a predator hunting its preys.

There are three targets for violence to be exercised (World Health Organization,
2002). The first target is oneself, by suicidal or abusive behaviours, also known as self-
directed violence; the second target is other persons at family or community level, also
known as interpersonal violence; the third target is people in other groups, also known
as collective violence, it has the largest scale and is instrumental in nature, that is,
goals are to be achieved with the use of violence.

A local study also stated that among the population of youth, an estimation of
25%, that is, almost a quarter of them would be categorized in the group of at-risk
youths (Abdul Kadir et al., 2012). This estimation was consistent with the findings of
a recent study, which was focused on students of upper secondary level in Peninsular
Malaysia. Covering more than 10 states, this large-scale study discovered that
violence-related behaviours was accounted for nearly 23% among the group of
students (Reffein, Shah & Lim, 2020).

Factors and consequences

As what has been mentioned in the beginning, delinquency may inevitably

involve the use of violence, therefore the theoretical explanations of juvenile
delinquency may also shed a light on the issue of youth violence.

In studying what actually causes youth violence, or their delinquency, there are
a number of theories and models available in giving relevant explanations. Let us first
begin from a larger scope, the social disorganization theory, which shows us how the
structure of our society may increase the risks of youth delinquency. This theory can
be better explained by the findings of a past pioneering on juvenile crime. In order to
investigate the long-term effects of social factors, this long-term study had researched
on the rates and patterns of juvenile delinquency somewhere in Chicago across
multiple periods of time. The researchers noticed an interesting phenomenon
throughout the study: the rates of juvenile delinquency still remained at its high level
even if there was a drastic change in the studied population. They found that juvenile
delinquency is not attributable to the youths themselves, but to the social
disorganization, poor economy and overpopulation in the society. If a society is facing
these three problems, then it may be at high risks of bringing about more cases of
juvenile delinquency (Shaw and McKay, 1969 as cited in Kloos et al., 2012).

The next theory is also viewing the causes of youth violence from the scope of
society. Normally, when studying on the juvenile delinquency (or youth violence), we
tend to study its direct causes that bring the youths into violence (like what we did on
the social disorganization theory), which is the common interest of many other
researchers in the same field. However, the causes of youth violence can also be
studied in an opposite way, by finding out what actually gets them out of crime and
conforms to the laws. This is the main focus of control theory, which centres on the
psychoanalytic concept of Sigmund Freud, who proposed that we are all innately born
with the nature of deviance. Only through the social control exerted by the society, we
learn how to restrict our innate desire and restrict ourselves from doing crime (Thio et
al., 2013). Hence, we have to find out what are the elements that “control” the
adolescents, and the absence of these elements is exactly the cause of youth violence.

An individual will not be overtaken by the deviant nature if he or she has a strong
social bond connected to the society. This social bond controls, or retrains the
adolescents so that they will not commit crime which may be harming the bonded
society. There are a number of ways by which adolescents can form a strong social
bond: attached to non-deviant social groups, committed to and involved in non-deviant
activities, and lastly, holding a moral belief (Hirschi, 1969, as cited in Thio et al., 2013).
If these behaviours are practiced, then a strong social bond will be formed and the
adolescent is “controlled” from being deviant.

From the interpersonal level of social bond theory, the theory of self-control
(Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994) has shifted its focus to a more personal level. A point
that we will discuss later is that youth violence is often accompanied by negative
consequences, not only to the surrounding, but also to the youth himself who carried
out the violence. In this sense, those who have good ability of self-control are
restrained from violent behaviours, as the prospect of negative consequences is
constantly warning them. In contrast, those who have poorer ability in self-control are
more tended to be involved in violence, because they normally do not take into account
the long-term ramifications, when compared to those who have better self-control.

Besides, the well-known theory of psychosocial development proposed by

Erikson can also be applied in explaining the cause of juvenile delinquency. According
to his theory, out of the eight developmental stages, when it comes to the adolescent
stage, which is the fifth stage, with ages spanning from 10 to 20, the individual will be
facing the challenging trial between “identity” and “role confusion”. They will be in
search of different roles in their society to see if they fit into any. There are both
positive and negative ways for them to do so. In the positive way, the socially
appropriate roles are accessible to the adolescents, and they are able to cope with the
challenges accompanied by a certain role. In the negative way, in contrast, the
adolescents are restrained from exploring the roles in society, or even unable to meet
the challenges of that role, and this is just the case for juvenile delinquency. When
facing such confusion of roles, the adolescents choose to be deviant and carry out
delinquency, in order to build a negative identity in their social groups, given that they
fail to achieve the positive ones (Erikson, 1968, as cited in Santrock, 2016).
 Next, let us shift our focus and continue with a neurobiological perspective. As
we know that technology nowadays is getting much more advanced as compared to
the olden days, hence the study into human’s brain has never been so easy. Based on
the assumption that the developmental pattern of our brains may answer the question
of why youth is more liable to carry out violence, the researchers had made an
interesting discovery through the technique of neuroimaging. It is a known fact that
our brain is not fully mature right after birth, instead, it is continuously developing as
we grow, and on the developmental timeline of the brain structures, the prefrontal
cortex is found to be located at the very end (Casey, 2015). Among its many functions,
one of them is associated with our ability in self-control (Wickens, 2005). However,
before it fully matures inside the brain, the development of another brain structure,
known as amygdala, has preceded it. The function of amygdala is more on the
emotional aspects, and it is known to be involved in the behaviour of aggression
(Wickens, 2005). Its preceding development before that of the prefrontal cortex, may
therefore explain why the youths are more vulnerable to risk-taking behaviours
(Steinberg, 2015).

In discussing the consequences of youth violence, we will take a bottom-up

approach here, from individual to national level. Not only does youth violence adversely
impact the well-being of youths, both psychologically and socially along their life course
(Reffein, Shah & Lim, 2020), it can also put them at increased risk for constant
behaviours of violence and other externalizing problems, even after the developmental
stage of adolescence (Lipsey & Derzon, 1998). From this we can see that youth
violence is also having long-term consequences, not only those immediate ones that
are usually discussed.

Youth violence is expensive and costing a lot (Seifert, 2012), such as in United
States, the annual amount of money spent on youth violence was greater than USD
20 billion (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). The ramifications of
youth violence at national level can also be manifested in many ways such as raising
the costs in healthcare and welfare services, reducing the value of property, and also
disrupting the social services (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020;
Reffein, Shah & Lim, 2020).
Interventions

If a youth is already found to be engaging in violent behaviours, or worse, in

juvenile delinquency that breaks the law, this is the time when effective interventions
are most helpful to bring them out of violence.

Often, it is an unfortunate news to know that some youths carried out violence
and violated the law. On the other hand, it can become a good news as they will be
processed under the juvenile justice system, when you know that this system can also
act as an intervention itself. Well, in this case we are not referring to the traditional
justice system that stresses on punishment, rather, we will prefer the restorative
justice system. The results of a meta-analysis study showed that, in comparison with
the traditional justice system, the restorative justice could induce more satisfaction
from both victim and offender. It was also found to be more effective in ensuring the
offenders comply with the restitution agreements, so that they were more willing to
take up the responsibilities. Apart from that, the programs of restorative justice were
also good at decreasing the offender’s recidivism, which is the tendency to commit the
offence again (Latimer, Dowden & Muise, 2005). This is further supported by the
findings of a national study done in United Kingdom, which stated that recidivism was
successfully reduced by 14% through the implementation of restorative justice
(Restorative Justice Council, 2016). In a study focusing specifically on juvenile
offenders, restorative justice was also proved to be more effective in reducing the rate
of recidivism, when compared to the traditional court systems (Bouffard, Cooper &
Bergseth, 2017).

As we can partly conclude from the discussion above, traditional justice system
with its punitive nature, is obviously not working well for the young criminals. However,
in the process of intervention, not only is restorative system better than punishment,
the skills-building programs are also more effective in reducing future recidivism
(Lipsey, 2009). It is not surprising that most of the youths involved in violence are
good at those socially undesirable skills, such as brawling and bullying, but at the same
time, they are often lacking of those socially desirable skills (Goldstein & Glick, 1994),
which are mostly associated with better ability of emotional control. Hence, they may
need to acquire those skills that enable them to curb their aggression and/or fit well
into the society (Seifert, 2012).
 Normally, the skill-building interventions may consist of programs on behaviour
management, trainings on social, academic and job-related skills, together with
cognitive-behavioural therapy, which was found to be the most effective in reducing
recidivism (Lipsey, 2009). With such a compact and rich content, the intervention is
therefore time-consuming. Hence, there are some of the requirements needed in order
to acquire better outcomes: the sequence of programs must be well-arranged;
constant practice of those skills on every single day; and lastly, those around the youth
are giving good supports to him or her (Seifert, 2012).

Conclusion

From a broader view of society, down to a more personal view of inner states,
the causes of youth violence were explained in terms of juvenile delinquency and also
risk-taking behaviours. And as usual, the biological explanation was also discussed.
From this study we can say that violence is indeed putting the youth at risk, as we
have learnt the many negative consequences that follow the violent behaviours, and
as shown, these effects can be widespread and long-term. The only limitation of this
paper is that it did not study on the early prevention of youth violence, which is
believed to be effective in reducing the possible onset of violent behaviours among
children, before everything is too late. However, some effective interventions had
already been suggested and it is hoped that these suggestions are useful in changing
the youths and fitting them well into the society.

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