Nonviolent Management of Youth Violence in America: A Conceptual and Clinical Model

Aqueil AhmadWU School of Management

A Nation at War with Itself

• Since September 11, 2001, America has been fighting the “war on terrorism” in distant lands. But unrecognized by many, America is also “a nation at war with itself.”

• The metaphor of “a nation at war with itself” implies that more Americans are regularly killed by other Americans than those killed in foreign wars.

• This insidious war rages in our homes, schools, and neighborhoods killing approximately 1,500 of us every year – more than in any other industrialized country.

• The current per year death rate of approx. 1,500 in this “domestic warfare” exceeds the similar death rate calculated for a period of 235 years for all the other American wars, including the War of Independence, the Civil War, the Second World War, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The next slide is instructive.

More Americans have died from Gunfire since 1968 than have died in all Wars since the Revolutionary War

Total Americans Killed in wars since the Revolution 1,171,177

Total Gunfire deaths since 1968 1,384,171

Avg. war deaths / year since Independence = 4,921

Homicides / year in America = ~15,000

Countrywide Gun Murder Rate per 100,000 population – Latest Figures

Source: United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime: Latest data for each country (2004-2010)

Firearms in private hands 2005 Figures (UN sources)

Country Rank/rate of Ownership Avg. firearms/100 people

• United States of America 1 89 • Yemen 2 54• Switzerland 3 46 • Finland 4 45• Serbia 5 38• Cyprus 6 36• Saudi Arabia 7 35 • Iraq 8 34• Uruguay 9 31.8 • Sweden 10 31.6• Norway 11 31.3• France 12 31.2 • Canada 13 31 • Austria 14 30.4 • Iceland 15 30• Germany 15 30• Oman 17 25• Bahrain 18 24.8 • Kuwait 18 24.8 • Macedonia 20 24

But this presentation is about youth violence in America

A Time Clock on Random Mass Murders committed by American Youth

Location Date # victims (deaths + casualties) Perpetrator (s)

Bath, MI 5/18/1927 44 + 58 A. Kehoe

UOT-Austin 8/1/1966 14 + 32 C. Whitman

Olean, NY 12/30/1974 3 A. Barbaro ,17 yr.

Moses Lake, WA 2/2/1996 2 Barry Lokaitis ,14 yr.

Pear, MS 10/1/1997 2 Luke Woodham, 16 yr.

Jonesboro, AR 3/1998 5 + 10 children 11-13 yrs.

Oklahoma City 4/19/1998 168 + 68 T. McVeigh (& T. Nichols)

Springfield, OR 5/21/1998 2 + 20 K. Kinkel, 17 yr.

Paducah, KY 12/1/1997 4+5 M. Carneal, 14 yr.

Columbine, CO 4/20/1999 12 E. Harris & D. Klebold - teenagers

Red Lake, MN 3/21/2005 10 + 7 A High School student - teenager

Nickel Mines, PA10/2/2006 6 + 6 An unnamed assailant

Virginia Tech 4/16/2007 32 + 17 Seung-Hui Cho – college student

Tucson, A 1/8/2011 6 + 1 J. Loughner

Aurora, CO 7/20/2012 12 + 58 J. Holms

Sandy Hook, CT 12/14/2012 A. Lanza - teenager_______________________________________Total casualties = 652

Youth Violence – Cont.

• During the past one year since Sandy Hook, there have been numerous other random attacks by young people on schools and other public places- All have involved handguns and assault rifles

1/25/14: Columbia, MD mall shooting adds to growing trend

Youth Violence - Management

• Making handguns and assault rifles, these “weapons of mass destruction”, inaccessible to potentially dangerous persons with criminal records and/or a history of mental disorder would help ease the situation but would not protect innocent lives.

• Neither would policing our schools and shopping malls or arming our teachers and students – as the National Rifle Associations (NRA) suggests.

• The next slide suggests a conceptual and clinical model of nonviolent cultural and behavioral alternatives to potentially violent management of youth violence.

The Causative Model

The Model Explained

• Obviously, the dependent variable in this model is youth violence.

• The heuristic independent/explanatory variables include five interdependent cultural/behavioral states sustained and supported by systemic feedback loops among them.

• Powerlessness = the most critical explanatory variable in this model in interactive relationships with the other four: lack of adult-youth communication, disconnection, anonymity, and selfishness - making a perfect feedback loop.

• Complex social and human conditions do not occur in a vacuum nor are they created by single antecedents.

• No “absolute truths” or final states in science. A multivariate analysis is the best available means to comprehend and explain the world around us. The following slides briefly describe each variable along with some counteractive interventions.

Variable Description

• Youth violence – the dependent variable: random acts of violence, like schoolyard assaults committed by the young, sometime very young.

• Powerlessness: Perception by the individual that he/she has little or no control over own life or the life around. The reaction: power-seeking behavior through legitimate or illegitimate means.

• Intervention strategies (IS): Encourage political participation, involvement in family affairs, community development, etc.

• IS 2: Change through exhortation from the president down to preachers about the human and social cost of violence; warnings about violence in social media; lessons in humility and forgiveness through role models as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela.

Variable Descriptions

• Lack of adult-youth communication: Death of old style communities. Lack of adult role models; except perhaps the parents and teachers. When they fail to communicate what matters to kids, disconnection/alienation may set in.

• IS = Parents and teachers: Please bond with your charges; talk about moral values rather than simply practical matters and material things.

• Disconnection: feeling of alienation/isolation from family, peers, community, society. It heightens sense of powerlessness as well as that of anonymity

• IS = Adults: Try to understand inner feelings of young people; try to become their roles models for morality and sanity; for doing the right thing

Variable Description - Cont.

• Anonymity: “I am alone and therefore anonymous.” “I am accountable to no one; and hence can do anything I am compelled to do, including violence against innocent people.”

• IS = Improving meaningful communication as suggested above would be the best strategy to inculcate belongingness and counter anonymity.

• Selfishness: Often called inner-centeredness. “I am the universe. I couldn’t care less about others’ welfare.”

• IS = Communicate about and set examples for giving, helping others

• Combined interplay of five explanatory variables = the hypothesis of powerful reaction to powerlessness (PRP): “Youth violence is powerful reaction to powerlessness.”

• Examples in this model include violence against others and/or self-destruction (suicide).

• PRP as an outcome of social, political, and economic environment can explain numerous other forms of violent or nonviolent individual or mass actions, like terrorism, gang violence, or nonviolent protests or noncooperation.

Conclusions

• Understanding causation of events suggests actions for desirable outcomes.

• Youth violence can be contained through meaningful interpersonal communication and public exhortation about the causes and consequences of violence in society and how not to engage in it.

• Its success would depend upon its extent and commitment and consistency with which the approach is pursued.

• There will be no shortcuts to success through this program. But like all nonviolent actions to bring about social/behavioral change, it will be a lot less costly and more effective than punishing the perpetrators and policing public places.

Sources

• Ahmad, A (2003). A conceptual and clinical model of youth violence in America. Special joint issue. The Journal of Applied Sociology , Vol. 20, No. 1; and Sociological Practice, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1-35.

• _________2000. A theoretical model of powerlessness and resistance. Annual meeting of the Association for Humanist Sociology, Nov. 18, Covington, KY.

• _________1996. Powerful reaction to powerlessness. Peace Review, 8:23-49.

• _________1995. Nonviolence of the brave: Powerful reaction to powerlessness. American Sociological Association – annual meeting, Aug. 22, Washington, D.C.