The Prevention of Antisocial Behavior

Abstract

Every year in the United States, millions of dollars and countless hours of mental health, school, law enforcement, and medical personnel time are devoted to addressing antisocial child behavior in the context of families, schools, and community settings. Such efforts indicate the epidemic nature of antisocial behavior in this country. One needs only to turn to statistics concerning youth violence and criminal behavior in the United States to understand the magnitude of the problem. For example, compared to other industrialized countries, the U.S. homicide rate in 15- to 24-year-old males is more than four times that of the runner-up, with about one half of arrests in that age group involving juveniles under the age of 21 (Fingerhut & Kleinman, 1990; World Health Organization, 1992). Over the last decade in the U.S., the rate of homicides by younger adolescents has increased (Greenwood, Model, Rydell, und Chiesa, 1996). Youth are victims of violent crime at a rate that is nearly three times higher than the rate for adults (Sickmund, Snyder, & Poe-Yamagata, 1997), and youth are most frequently the perpetrators of crimes against other youth (Snyder & Sickmund, 1995).