Abstract
Even though the idea that some people may be born with a predisposition to violent behavior may be questionable, it seems to be a reasonable assumption to think that as young people are growing up, they encounter factors that may facilitate their becoming aggressive and acting out violently. At the same time, there are protective factors that work as a buffer against the risk of becoming prone to such behaviors. It is a process of “becoming” that takes place and that leads them to either violent or non-violent behavior.
There are risk factors that are reportedly predictive of future violence already at ages 10, 14, and 16. Children exposed to them are often violent by age 18. At times, children of high-school age and even younger are exposed to multiple risk factors concomitantly and may react in the future with a high degree of violence, because negative risk factors reinforce one another. This is the case of the triad hyperactive behaviors, poor school performance, and low commitment to school (e.g., Herrenkohl et al., 2000). Both genders react to these factors, but the violent acting out of girls is frequently related to their supposedly being more sensitive to the effects of poor parental and family relationships, factors that belong to the family risk-factors group.
Even though the risk factors by themselves are not the cause of youth violence but only contributory factors, they are, nevertheless, important. They may be classified as individual, family-connected, and peer/social and community related. Examples of the first are a history of violent victimization, low IQ, and poor behavioral control. Family risk factors include low parental involvement with their children, harsh and/or inconsistent disciplinary parental attitudes, and poor family life. Association and involvement with delinquent peers obviously belong to the peer/social risk-factors group. Finally, among the communityrisk factors may be found diminished economic opportunities and a socially disorganized neighborhood.
Among the protective factors are an intolerance for deviance, positive social orientation, good behavior within the family and socially, and the frequent and consistent presence of parents or parental substitutes at home. Also, commitment to school and social activities are very important (Resnick, Ireland, & Borowsky, 2004).
In this issue of the IJOTCC Alex Piquero and colleagues discuss risk factors that they found to be related to violent recidivism, including age, sex and race. In the December issue, Laura Bui and colleagues presented a comparative study of two groups of high-school students, one in Osaka, Japan, and the other in Seattle, the United States. The study considered the prevalence of risk factors in both groups and their relationship to violent acting out. They reported several previous similar studies including one much earlier study that found that a Japanese group was less violent than the American one (Tanioka & Glaser, 1991), results that are opposite of those found by Bui et al. In trying to account for the different results, the authors considered, in addition to methodological differences, the incomparability of the two groups: for example, various studies found that the Japanese students reported were older, better educated, more mature. The article stressed cultural differences as an important factor when assessing risks for violence, and it raised question, whether established Western criminological knowledge is applicable to non-Western societies. As an illustrative example, the authors reported the difference in the interpretation of a single-parent home in Seattle vis-a-vis Osaka. In Seattle, Bui et al. stated, this means that the father is not a part of the household, with physical, economic and psychological consequences for the children. In Osaka, on the other hand, a father who at times works away from home by necessity is still a part of the family, but the Japanese youth is still considered to be a member of a one-parent home.
The article by Bui et al. showed that in addition to the risk factors reported by Piquero and colleagues, scholars should take into consideration that a different context, a different language, and even different interpretations of questionnaires employed in studies are present in a transcultural comparative setting, and that because of the above, they should be very cautious in applying generalizations.