Social and Cultural Factors

Youth violence cannot be understood apart from the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs. In terms of the larger culture, the United States is considered by many to be an unusually violent society. Indeed, in his historical analysis, Courtwright (1996) stated that, “Violence and disorder constitute the primal problem of American history” (p. 1). As a reflection of this problem, when international comparisons are made for homicide rates for 15- to 24-year-old males, the overall rate for the United States is between 35 and 40 deaths per 100,000 population, compared with under 5 deaths per 100,000 population for all the other major developed countries (Christoffel, 1997).