Scholars, public officials, and reporters have described the violence of this decade as epidemic as the homicide rate has doubled for adolescents between 1984 and 1994. Current policy to combat youth violence is primarily reactive, focusing on increased punishments and spending millions of dollars each year on incarceration.

Providing the latest research on effective prevention and intervention strategies for reducing youth violence, Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention, and Social Policy is a comprehensive resource for dealing with both perpetrators and victims of violence and understanding the risk factors facing youth.

It covers * Results from tested prevention and intervention programs including practical descriptions, core components for success, evaluation findings, costs, and lessons learned from actual implementations* Intervention techniques that teach prosocial behavior to antisocial youth* Psychopharmacological and neurobiological issues in the treatment of violent youth* The statistical predictability of adult aggression based on childhood aggression* The effects of exposure to violence and the continuity of aggression from childhood to adulthood* An integration strategy for a sound public policy toward prevention and treatment of violent youth

Complete with an extensive reference list of over 700 publications and studies, this practical volume appeals to a wide audience including sociologists, criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, educators, counselors, and nurses.