The authors tested an ecological model that posits mediating variables (substance use and mental health) in the association between ecological factors (family closeness, school closeness, and peer closeness) and youth violence in a sample of 4,783 adolescents. Model including substance use present significantly less total effect between ecological factors and youth violence than do models without substance use. Additional probing of significant mediation effect using the Sobel test was performed and suggested that substance use did function as a mediator in the hypothesized path. Considerations of adolescent violence should recognize the possible role of ecological factors and how their influence may vary by substance use.
KeywordsFamily closeness; school closeness; peer closeness; substance use; violence; ecological model Adolescent violence has been a great concern in American society for over two decades. According to Marcus (2005), youth are more vulnerable to violence than any other age group. Wiesner and Windle (2004) state, "adolescence is known as the peak period for delinquent activity on the aggregate level and characterized by changes and transitions in multiple domains (e.g. pubertal development, increasing engagement in or experimentation with various deviant behaviors, identity development, initiation of romantic relationships)" (p. 432). Data collected through the National Crime Victimization Survey in 1991 show that the most likely age group to be involved in serious violent crimes were adolescents (Snyder & Sickmund, 1995).Many statistics have been published about adolescent violence, previously from research in juvenile justice and school settings. Juvenile justice research shows that violent adolescent crimes increased significantly from the 1980s to the mid 1990s, reaching its peak in 1994. In 2000, there were over two million arrests of adolescents under the age of 18, and of these arrests, nearly 100,000 were for violent offenses (Snyder, 2002). By 2001, "juveniles accounted for 17% of all arrests and 15% of all violent crime arrests" (Snyder, 2003, p.1).Correspondence should be directed to Dr. Sung Seek Moon, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington, 211 S. Cooper St., Arlington, TX 76019; sungmoon@uta.edu. (2003), there was a 59% increase in female adolescents' involvement with the juvenile justice system for all juvenile offenses between 1990 and 1999.
NIH Public AccessData from the Add Health Survey in 2001 showed that as much as 33% of high school students had been involved in at least one physical fight and 7.5% of these fights resulted in injury (Marcus, 2005). Data collected through the Center for Disease Control (2002) showed that, of those students who were involved in at least one physical fight in the 12 months prior to the survey, 54% had also been involved in fights in two or more instances, and of the students who had reported being injured during a fight, 37% also reported that they had been injured in fights in two or more instances.
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