ABSTRACT
It is important to place youth violence in historical and comparative perspective. Involvement of youths in violent episodes is by no means a twentieth-century invention. Youth violence, whether in the context of youth gangs or not, has been characteristic of adolescent life for centuries. It is worth noting, though, that American youth violence appears to be particularly lethal in comparison to that found in other industrialized nations (e.g., Huizinga & Schumann, 2001; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Media and academic attention to gangs and associated violence tends to fluctuate across time. Following a relatively prominent youth violence and gang problem in the 1950s and 1960s, the 1970s and early 1980s were relatively calm. Then, beginning in the late1980s, the United States experienced an epidemic of youth violence.
