A National Evaluation Of The Youth Firearms Violence Initiative

After watching the documentary on Policing the Police provided by Frontline, I have come to realize that community policing rather and the use of a task force is a better approach when trying to get guns and drugs off the street. Subsequently, I do not believe that officers can realistically get guns and drugs off the streets without violating citizens’ rights. Based on related articles from The New Yorker and PBS, and first hand experiences from the narrator in the documentary I will be able to provide insight into my own opinions and thoughts about the issues at hand. This essay will also provide insight into the pros and cons of using community policing rather than using a task force. Also, this essay will touch on the

In time, violent crimes were slowly being decreased in the United States, but it seems to be making some sort of a comeback when it comes to youth violence and violence affiliated with gangs. This topic has appeared to be a dominant target for educators,

are left to cope with the loss of a life lived and to have a future overshadowed by the

Imagine being able to get your hands on a gun in your community with ease when you were younger. Sounds cool right? Well, to some it might and that’s how young children are living in our communities now-a-days. Kids are able to get guns as long as they have parents with guns or the money to buy one. There aren’t enough restrictions on guns & who can get a hold of them on the streets and parents aren’t doing a well enough job of hiding their guns from their children. Something needs to be done. Too many children and young adults are being injured and murdered by something that is supposed to protect them. The ease in which youths are able to possess guns needs to be stopped. The harder it is for kids to get guns, the safer

This study provides an investigation on youth feelings and reactions towards gun violence in an urban setting. The focus group validated that gun violence causes mental health behavior problems and stress among youth in Jersey City. However, participants in this study indicated that they have been a victim of gun violence sometime in their life. All participants highlighted that they have heard gun shots before and are used to it by now. In the discussion, many participants stated that if they go to the police that would not reduce gun violence in Jersey City because people will still continue to kill and shoot one another. The findings of this study displayed that gun violence is a huge problem in Jersey City that needs more attention from

Teenage gun violence is on the rise. Gun violence has become a major problem for America. We have more privately owned guns than any other country. This could be one of the reasons that guns are being used by teens, because of the access they have to guns. The availability of guns to our youth is making the world unsafe. Although lawmakers are working on gun control laws, I wonder is the problem too far gone.

Before I get into the strategies put in place to reduce gun violence, I want to touch on the things that contribute to gun violence in New Haven. According to the “Selected Strategies for Community Gun Violence Prevention” report, violent crimes contribute to and are exacerbated by economic disadvantage (City-Wide). The main area in New Haven where gun violence occurs is in areas of low-income and poverty and the gun violence are being executed by the youth ages 15-24. In this day and age, we are living in a society where your income level determines your life expectancy, whether it is homicide, suicide or another form of violent activity. Living in New Haven and experiencing this first hand, I was able to see how the power and the struggle of poverty, low-income, gang wars and even drug activity can exacerbate gun violence. New Haven has as many as 2,500 people who are in gangs. These gangs lie in six neighborhoods in New Haven. The gangs being, The Ville, The Tre, The Tribe, The Jungle, The Island and The Hill hold responsibility

The history of this problem primarily focuses on the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the rate of youth homicides increased dramatically for many cities. Specifically in

According to the Toronto police, an Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy was a necessary investment in wake of increasing gun violence among poor (primarily black) youth in the city of Toronto, which peaked to its ultimate high in the year 2005 known as the ‘year of the gun’. A media spectacle of the Toronto’s gang violence primarily involving young black men from poor inner suburban

In 2015, Nashville, Tennessee experienced the highest rate of juvenile violence then compared to the last ten years (Bennett, 2016). In fact, Nashville far exceeded other large cities such as Oakland, California and Louisville, Kentucky (Bennett, 2016). Nashville juveniles were responsible for 75 homicides, which is twice as many as Oakland, California (Bennett, 2016). Nashville juveniles committed 215 violent crimes, with 159 of them included the use of a firearm (Bennett, 2016). These statistics are alarming and show that juvenile gang activity in Nashville is of great concern (Bennett, 2016). Nashville’s Metro Police have concluded that youths today are using guns as way to resolve disagreements, rather than what has typically been accomplished, in the past, through fist fights (Bennett, 2016).

On an unseasonably cold March morning in 1993, high school sophomore Edward Gillom exited his first period classroom and made his way through the crowded hallways of Harlem High School. After engaging in a heated argument, allegedly over a girl, with Ronricas “Pony” Gibson and Ricoh Lee, Gillom pulled out a .38-caliber gun and opened fire. Gillom’s shots fatally wounded Gibson and left Lee with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the neck (Washington Ceasefire, 2011 pg 1). The shooting in Harlem, Georgia sparked national attention as one of the first high school shootings and added to the alarmingly high rates of gun violence by adolescents during the 1990s. According to the Virginia Youth Violence Project, forty-two homicides took place in

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is the largest most encompassing Criminal Act to have ever been passed in United States History. The act not only addressed criminal activities it also allowed for 9.7 billion dollars to be spent on prisons, 6.1 billion dollars to be spent on crime prevention programs, 2.6 billion dollars to fund DEA, INS, and other Justice Department entities. Obtained valuable input from experienced police officers as well as made a way for 100,000 new police officers to be hired nationwide. The Act also addressed issues regarding the governments dealing with those who committee crimes but are not in the United States legally. To understand how an Act this massive is able to pass into law this paper explores both the pre-decision and decision process which lead to adoption this Federal Act.

Handguns were used most often in homicides, most cases being in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s before falling to a low in 2008 (Cooper, et al.). Most gun involvement occurs with gang related activity, which increased from 73% in 1980 to 92% in 2008 (Cooper, et al.). The percentage of homicide victims killed with a gun increased with age of the victim until age 17, where it peaked at 79% and declined thereafter (Cooper, et al.). The sharp increase in homicides from the mid-1980’s through the early 1990’s, and much of the subsequent decline, is attributable to gun violence by teens and young adults (Cooper, et al.). From 1980 to 2008, more

A literature review of gun violence prevention is being undergone as part of this submittal. This research is important because gun violence has been a plague in the United States and the United Kingdom, among other places, for much of the recent century or two. This violence takes on two major forms. The first is general gun violence that is perpetrated as part of gang violence, robberies, burglaries, crimes of passion or spite and so forth. The other major form, which is both quite uncommon but very poignant and affecting when it happens, are school and other mass shootings like Columbine and the very recent Sandy Hook. There have been a decent amount of other school shootings and work shootings, but those are far and away the most notorious. Both were effected by very mentally ill teenagers or young adults that decide to go out in a bloody and perverted blaze of glory before they took their own life.

The community policing model has been translated into a number of policy initiatives. In community policing there are many initiative and or programs that have been developed to combat youth crime such as Youth Firearms Violence Initiative (YFVI) which is running in 10