Prevention Works

Turns Out Girls Are Not Getting More Violent!

In January 2007 I posted a blog titled “Are Girls Getting More Violent?” Now, a year and a half later, I can report to you the answer: No. A bulletin titled “Violence by Teenage Girls: Trends and Context” that was released last month by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice shows that while the arrest rate of teenage girls for violent crime (in particular simple assault) has gone up, violent crimes by this group have not increased. Even more interesting, the rate of violence among teenage girls has not increased in comparison to that of teenage boys. However, as I noted in my previous blog, “according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report data from 1992 to 2003, the number of girls arrested rose 6.4 percent. Girls arrested on assault charges rose 41 percent during that same time period.”

With this new information telling us that girls aren’t more violent, why does it still seem like they are? Is it the fact that the media splashes it everywhere when something like the beating of a Florida girl by her peers happens? Is it that you can log on to Youtube and watch any number of videos showing girls beating each other up? Or is it because there has been a change in acceptance of this behavior, causing policies to be enacted such as three strikes laws that are causing a rise in arrests where before the problem would have been handled outside the legal system?

So I ask the same question I asked a year and a half ago: Regardless of whom or what is to blame and why, the question that really needs to be answered is what can be done to prevent this behavior from occurring in the first place?

Community Guns

On May 29, 2008, a 10-year-old girl named Kathina Thomas was shot and killed while riding her bike in front of her home in Albany, NY. After a two-week investigation, police finally arrested 15 year-old Jermayne Timmons for this horrendous crime. According to the statement he gave the police, Timmons explained that he fired a shot at a group of teenagers when he thought he saw one pull out a gun. Instead, he missed, and that bullet traveled a block, hitting Kathina Thomas in the back.

The death of this young girl has left an entire city in mourning. However, as disturbing as her death is, what’s worse are the circumstances surrounding it. In his statement, Timmons told the police that he had obtained the gun used to kill Thomas from a garbage can. As he explained, it was a “community gun” available for everyone in the neighborhood.

With the growing crackdown on gun control by police, gang members have been forced to find new ways to obtain weapons. This system of “community guns” is rapidly becoming a solution to their problem. They make weapons available to a large group of people and have the added bonus of preventing weapons used in crimes from being obtained by police. But this scheme is not native to Albany. According to ABC News, police in Suffolk County, NY, recently recovered a gun they believe was used on three students in a Newark, NJ, schoolyard and possibly in another two out-of-state murders. Officials believe that this one gun was carried across New York through a gang network known to recycle guns used in violent crimes. And New York is not alone. Police in cities such as Philadelphia, PA; Cleveland, OH; Trenton, NJ; and Boston, MA have discovered mounds of weapons hidden in abandoned buildings. Officials believe the weapons are shared by criminals and gang members.

Community guns encompass a multitude of problems we are currently facing. Gun control, gang violence, and neighborhood safety are all issues that plague our society and foster a fear in citizens for their protection. And while some of these problems can sometimes seem much bigger than the individual, there are things each person can do to help stop the violence in their communities. Stay connected with leaders in your neighborhood, whether they are police, a minister or an educator. Let them know if you have suspicions of illegal activity, even if you are not totally sure. Get involved with the youth in your community. Kids fall into lives of crime in violence when they have nowhere else to go, so give them new options. Volunteer at a local afterschool club such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, or start one of your own.

For more information on how to help the youth in your community avoid a life of violence, check out this article by NCPC called “Strategy: Gang Prevention Through Community Intervention With High-Risk Youth.”

Heat = Crime?

I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire;
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And, if we meet, we shall not ‘scape a brawl,
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

One concrete fact of life is that you cannot control the weather. Obviously, this is unfortunate; it always seems to rain on your wedding day or rain on your parade— and on top of that, when it rains, it pours. Yet, here at NCPC, we don’t let that stop us from preventing crime. Specifically, one aspect of the weather we can try to control and prevent is the effect of hot weather on crime.

You are probably asking yourself, “Wait, heat has an effect on crime?” The answer is yes. Hot weather can lead people to anger easily, become violent quickly, and even maybe more readily kill. At least that is what the “heat hypothesis” predicts. The heat hypothesis is a simple yet powerful idea: the more uncomfortably hot the temperature, the more likely people become aggressive. Research shows that assault, homicide, and other violent crimes are most frequent in the warmest months—June, July, and August. Research shows this is most likely due to a range of causes, such as increased outdoor activity and contact, increased irritability in uncomfortable heat, and physical effects of heat on the body (like increased testosterone and hormone production). Studies have even shown that both aggressive car horn-honking and baseball batters being hit by a pitch increased in uncomfortably warm temperatures! Our vocabulary even reflects this link between heat and violence. “Tempers ‘flare’ when we fight; we get ‘hot under the collar’ when we are frustrated; or we do a ‘slow-burn’ when angered.”

These are all reasons to be especially vigilant and cautious during the upcoming summer months. Use these tips about personal safety and violence to keep yourself and others safe while still enjoying the outdoors and staying cool. Beat and heat and Help Take A Bite Out Of Crime® this summer!

College Stress: How Are Your Kids Handling the Change?

Throughout my entire academic experience, I have been warned about the dangers of substance abuse. In elementary school, I learned that drugs and alcohol are bad and to “Just Say No.” In junior high school, I was introduced to the concept of peer pressure and what it meant to make smart decisions for myself rather than for other people. Then suddenly, I hit college and all of the warnings seemed to disappear. No one was telling me that drinking was bad. In fact, students and professors alike joked about local bars that would serve just about anyone who looked over the age of 12. Suddenly I was being considered an adult with an entirely new set of freedoms.

And while gaining this newfound independence was liberating, something wasn’t quite right. Rather than learning how to drink in moderation and use practical judgment, we were being tossed into a pressure pit that no one had really warned us about and at the same time being given the opportunity to try substances that seemed to make all of our stress fade away. Since we were working so hard during the week, we decided we needed to play even harder on the weekends. Suddenly, kids who never felt the desire to drink were stumbling in at 4:00 a.m. on a Wednesday. Popping a few Adderall to pull an all-nighter was a customary norm. I started hearing about old high school classmates overdosing or picking up habits. What was happening?

It seems that in high school, we were so busy focusing on getting into college, that we never took the time to find out what would happen when we got there. Sure, people explained to us that we would have new freedoms and the work would get more difficult. But people seemed to leave out the idea of four ten-page papers due in a week, or needing to work so that we had enough money to do our laundry, or needing to find internships and real life experience to even been considered for the jobs we wanted. We were handed the tension that comes with an increasingly competitive field without being taught the tools to healthily deal with it.

We need to start equipping young adults with the means to manage their priorities while still keeping their sanity. Offer stress management courses for freshmen entering college. Praise your kids for the effort they’re putting into their work, rather than focusing on what their GPA was that semester. Encourage them to find activities that relax them while they are still in high school, such as going to an art gallery or jogging. We need to start equipping teenagers with the ability to unwind and decompress in constructive ways now so they have outs for stress later.

For tips and ideas on how to effectively handle stress, take a look at this comprehensive stress management site, put together by the University Health Center and the University of Georgia.

Containing the Epidemic of Domestic Violence – Part 2

Obviously, domestic violence is always committed by a partner of the victim. However, what most women don’t realize is that domestic violence is not the only kind of brutalization that is carried out by someone the victims knows and trusts. The fact is that the most common types of sexual assault are committed by a friend, family member or loved one of the victim. This kind of sexual assault is known as “acquaintance rape,” or, as it is more popularly referred to, “date rape.” A study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 67 percent of sexual assaults were acquaintance rapes.

Most preconceived notions about date rape include the use of “roofies,” which is the slang term used for drugs used by rapists to incapacitate their victims. And while date-rape drugs such as GHB or Rohypnol are sometimes used, the most common type of date-rape drug is alcohol. Thus, parties, clubs, and bars are prime locations for sexual assault to occur. To protect yourself, try some of these steps suggested by the Butler County Rape Crisis Program:

• Don’t go to parties or clubs alone, especially ones where you don’t know many people.
• When you go out with friends, set up a buddy system that includes a designated driver. Agree that you will all leave together.
• Talk to your friends before you go out. Discuss how much alcohol you want to drink that night and what you want to do. Agree that you will be supportive of each other and reinforce the guidelines each of you set up before leaving.
• NEVER leave your drink unattended. If you get up to go to the bathroom or chat with someone, get a new drink. Date-rape drugs are odorless, colorless, and tasteless, and dissolve rapidly. It takes only seconds for a rapist to slip one in your drink when you’re not around.
• Know the amount of alcohol you’re drinking. If someone else is making your drinks for you, watch them. Take note of how large the glass is and how strong they are making the drink.
• If you feel uncomfortable, follow your instincts. If you are alone with someone or just in a situation that you don’t feel comfortable with, get out. You don’t need to provide an explanation, just go.

By using all of these tactics, you make it much more difficult for a rapist to get you alone and in a state where you cannot defend yourself.

However, an important idea to take into account is that no matter how much a woman does to protect herself, it is not solely up to her. Because most attackers are male, we must also look at the male perspective of violence. Men need to be taught that, as much as women can try and prevent themselves from being assaulted, in the end, it is not up to women not to be raped; it is up to men not to rape.

For more information check out the informative brochure from NCPC titled Rape: Tough Questions, No Easy Answers [PDF].

Containing the Epidemic of Domestic Violence – Part 1

This is the first part of a two-part blog.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 511,000 women were violently assaulted on average each year between 2001 and 2005 by a spouse or intimate partner. In fact, studies show that one in four women will be violently assaulted in her lifetime. And while these numbers seem enormous on their own, we must also keep in mind that domestic and sexual assault are the most underreported of all crimes, so it is more than likely that these reported statistics are significantly less than the actual number of crimes committed.

Given this information, it is undeniable that domestic assault against women is an incredibly pertinent problem in the United States. Unfortunately, however, many women believe that violent assaults can be avoided by simply not walking down dark alleys at night. They do not realize that most assaults are inflicted by people they already know and trust. So what can we do to shed light on the issue? The first step is to teach women how to protect themselves from sexual and domestic violence. In order to do so, they must recognize the different kinds of abuse.

• Physical Abuse – using physical pain or physical force to intimidate
• Sexual Abuse – any unwanted sexual contact on a victim by a perpetrator
• Emotional /Psychological Abuse – insults, mind-games, manipulation, etc.
• Financial Abuse – abuser uses money as means of controlling their partner

Domestic violence can combine any or all of these types of abuse. For example, when women are being physically abused, some form of emotional or psychological abuse is usually present as well. While each type of abuse is terrifying in its own way, the National Domestic Abuse Hotline suggests these ways that women can protect themselves or escape from these situations.

• Look for signs in your significant other. Do they want to know everything about where you were during the day or get jealous easily? Did they push for a quick serious involvement in your relationship or have unrealistic expectations of you? Do they try to isolate you from your friends and family or seem to have substance abuse issues with drugs or alcohol? These are all signs that your partner has significant potential to become abusive.
• Call a domestic violence or rape crisis hotline. The people that work these lines are trained and can help women find places to go where you’ll be safe. If you don’t know a local number, you can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE.
• Pack a bag with some essential items you’ll need in order to be free of your abuser. These items include money, identification, birth certificate, and clothes. Keep this bag in a safe place such as the trunk of your car.
• When you call a domestic violence hotline, ask them about shelters in your area. If there’s no room in the one closest to you, they can find you another one nearby. Domestic violence shelters can also set you up with an advocate, a therapist, child care, and legal aid.

For additional resources, check out this brochure from the National Crime Prevention Council’s website, The Hidden Crime: Domestic Violence [PDF].

Phishing: Don’t Let Them Catch Anything

Recently, 38 people were arrested and charged in conjunction with a global crime ring for stealing names, Social Security numbers, credit card data, and other personal information from unsuspecting Internet users. The Romanian-based phishing scam had ripped off thousands of consumers and hundreds of financial institutions in the United States, Canada, Portugal, and Pakistan. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told the Associated Press,“International organized crime poses a serious threat not only to the United States and Romania, but to all nations. Criminals who exploit the power and convenience of the Internet do not recognize national borders; therefore our efforts to prevent their attacks cannot end at our borders.”

Phishing takes place when scammers send emails to a user that falsely claim to come from an established legitimate enterprise (usually a bank or credit card company) in an attempt to obtain private information that will be used for identity thefts. The email directs the user to a website where he or she is asked to update personal information that the legitimate organization already has. The website, however, is bogus and is only set up to steal the user’s information.

There are several steps you can take to keep from being a victim of phishing, including these:

• Be cautious of email asking for personal information
• Don’t click on links within emails that ask for your personal information
• Be aware of “pharming,” which tricks your computer so your Web browser will take you to false versions of websites that may steal any information you enter
• Never enter personal information in a pop-up screen
• Protect your computer with spam filters, antivirus and antispyware software, and a firewall
• Only open email attachments you are expecting and know what they contain
• Be aware that phishing also occurs via phone calls

Always be careful when you receive spam email asking for your personal information and stay safe online. For more information on phishing and identity theft, visit NCPC’s Identity Theft campaign website, www.fraud.org, or the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ID Theft Clearinghouse at www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

Protecting Our Children - From Us?

I love to read. I read everything from imaginative children’s books such as Where the Wild Things Are, to painful yet eye-opening works such as The Bluest Eye. For me reading is like literary yoga; it is strengthening and peaceful. That is, until yesterday when I read a news article entitled “Father Accused of Raping 3-Month Old Daughter.” Needless to say, I didn’t much feel like reading anymore.

According to the aforementioned article by the Associated Press, Kirk Coleman, a veteran of the war in Iraq, pleaded guilty to first degree child abuse of his three-month old daughter. Coleman went on to describe four incidents of abuse that ultimately lead to his daughter suffering numerous broken bones and brain damage. Coleman faces up to five years in prison.

Let’s take a step back for a second. At three months old, a child is likely just beginning to roll over. Not walk or run, roll over. At three months, a child is finally able to hold onto a rattle, kick her little legs, and, most rewardingly, smile. What children are not able to do, shouldn’t have to do, is defend themselves from their parents or loved ones as they attack them, often repeatedly.

Far too many children are victims of child abuse each year. Where there was once a time that communities raised children, now even babies can’t be assured of safety within their own homes. As adults, we must consider that strangers are no longer the only threat to our children; unfortunately, we may need to protect them from ourselves. If you are a parent, seek help from friends or relatives when you need rest or are feeling stressed out and ask your community centers or local schools to develop parenting classes that will teach you about your child’s behavior. Ask them to offer a center for support when you are feeling unable to cope with the demands of parenting.

It would be easy to blame or judge. Yet, the bottom line is that we all must do better. For if we don’t we will simply continue to recycle our shortcomings and pain for generations to come. To learn more about what you can do to prevent child abuse, including helpful tips, visit www.preventchildabuse.org.