The prevention of child and adolescent violence - A review

Violence among youth in the United States has surged in the past two decades. Numerous treatment programs exist to help treat the after-effects of violence, but by comparison, too few attempts are made to prevent violence from occuring. Primary and secondary violence prevention programs from the past 20 years have shown promising preliminary results. In general, secondary prevention efforts, or interventions with youth at-risk have shown more promise than primary prevention efforts, or intervention for the general population of youth. Furthermore, secondary prevention efforts tend to be more experimental in nature and effect sizes or clinical significance are reported more often when results are analyzed. Although numerous theories exist on the cause of violence among youth, no one theoretical stance appears to be dominant in terms of efficacy for prevention programs. Prevention research needs to be more rigorous and scientific in nature if it is to make any lasting impact on the types of interventions that will continue. A concerted effort on the part of federal and state-funded agencies needs to be made so that violence prevention work can become less redundant and more effective. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.