Abstract
The adolescent homicide rate doubled in the United States (US) between 1984 and 1994. Given this context, effective youth violence intervention and prevention strategies have emerged as a priority. Daniel Flannery and Ronald Huff have edited this most recent contribution to the Clinical Practice Series, publishing extended reports from American Psychiatric Association meetings. The book is made up of 12 chapters dealing with the aetiology of youth violence and effective methods of prevention. The first chapter written by Delbert Elliott and Patrick Tolan provides an overview of youth violence preventive intervention from the perspective of social policy. The book ends with a set of recommendations for further developing prevention programs. In approaching this book, Australian clinicians will be expecting to find a current account of the epidemiology of youth violence, its determinants and successful intervention strategies. These expectations are only partially fulfilled.
The book has some strengths. The book fits broadly within the risk and protection framework advocated by the US Institute of Medicine. There is a concerted attempt to look at the problem of youth violence from the level of individual biological factors, the family, developmental theory, community organisation and laws and regulations. Delbert Elliott and Patrick Tolan in their overview chapter provide some useful distinctions looking at types of offending. They distinguish between situational, relationship, predatory and psychopathological forms of violence. Chapter 2 presented by Dennis Embry and Daniel Flannery focuses on behavioural intervention strategies. This chapter is written with flair and examines, from a behavioural perspective, the important role of experience in early brain development. This chapter provides useful details on behavioural applications in youth violence interventions.
Some of the weaknesses of the book arise from its US focus. Separate chapters are devoted to youth gangs and the role of fire-arms in youth violence. Much of this material will be less relevant to readers outside the US. Chapter 9 by Deborah Gorman-Smith and Lisa Avery deals with family factors and youth violence, tackling the issue of intervention, but with insufficient depth from the perspective of this reader.
In overview, I was disappointed to identify a number of clear gaps. The important work in the United States on community mobilisation interventions for addressing youth violence is not covered. There is far too little on the first two years of life and its importance for the development of youth competence, the evidence for effectiveness of early childhood home visititation is inadequately covered. For the interested reader, a better alternative might be the recent book on youth violence edited by Loeber and Farrington [1].