Youth Violence in Society

Youth Violence in Society

"In 2002, more than 877,700 young people ages 10 to 24 were injured from violent acts. Approximately 1 in 13 required hospitalization" (CDC 2004). Violence is everywhere. We can't control it. Its on TV, it's on the radio, it's in our schools, it's in the streets, and it's everywhere. Currently in the US, the rate of crimes committed by minors has sky rocketed in the last 10 years. Now comes the big question, who's to blame? As out society grows, so do its problems.

One Theory to the anomaly is that violent entertainment influences violent behavior. Dating back to the days of ancient Rome, the emperors would hold huge gladiatorial events for the people. The events would have such spectacles as man vs. man, or man vs. beast, and sometimes they would reenact famous battles. The people loved these events. They cheered and roared at the sight of blood and carnage. Some might criticize this behavior in hind sight by calling it barbaric, in humane, etc. However today we are still the same, using violence to entertain ourselves. We just use different medium, instead of huge spectacles, we have graphic prime time TV shows like Twenty-Four, CSI, Lost and Law and Order. Even faux violent programs such as WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) depict men performing violent and seriously dangerous stunts for entertainment. In fact there was a recent case where two children, roughly ten to twelve years old were in one child's parent's bedroom, UN supervised, pretending to be their favorite wrestlers. As the two kids were playing around on the bed, one kid went to perform one of the moves he had seen on TV that day and accidentally snapped his best friend's neck, killing him instantly. The controversy with this was should the child be tried as an adult for murder? But that's not the point here, the point is this child, killed his best friend playing a game. Not only will he be traumatized for the rest of his life, but he will be spending it behind bars. How many other kids haven't tried this same thing? Acting out their favorite wrestlers big move, only this time, it was fatal.

TV isn't the only way violence is obtained as entertainment in the modern household. Music is a bog one. With the availability of the internet, the youth of our society is able to share files with other people around the world and have any song ever recorded available at the click of a mouse. Does this frighten you? That your precious child could be up in his room right now listening to bands among the likes of Slayer, Slipknot, Mudvayne and the ever popular Marilyn Manson. As long as one doesn't take what these bands say literally, then everyone's alright. But taking the violent and disturbing lyrics and images portrayed on album covers, music videos, and live shows will defiantly encourage one to act out such violent acts these bands build there reputations off of. Its not just rock music though that is contributing to this wave of violent behavior, rap artist prefer to boast about their street credit in their songs. Talking about guns, selling drugs, getting shot, fighting, etc. There are all common themes among popular music