Causes

• Countless causes have been proposed by sociologists to account for the phenomenon of youth violence. Certain causes exhibit a strong relationship to a household's income level or person's environment. Examples of these causes are the influence of gangs, poverty or unemployment. Other causes may affect children or teens regardless of a family's income level, such as peer pressure, broken homes or the damaging affect of drugs on a person's behavior. Perhaps the most cited cause of teen violence is representations of violence in the media. The Motion Picture Association of America instituted the PG-13 rating in 1984, stating that some material in a movie may be inappropriate for children under 13 years of age, in order to provide an added caution to concerned parents.
  
  

Publicized Cases

• Legal debates over censorship have permitted teens to post violent videos on YouTube, including footage of beatings. Sixteen-year-old Victoria Lindsay was the victim of such a beating, and video recorded by her attackers was uploaded to YouTube in 2008. She received multiple injuries and suffered a concussion. In another case, the mother of a teen attacker encouraged her daughter to engage in a fight after learning of her daughter's intentions prior to the confrontation (see references below). Video of the attack was recorded on a cell phone camera and was later uploaded to YouTube. In both incidents, these postings were removed by YouTube after viewers flagged them as containing inappropriate content.
  
  

The Social Context of Violence

• Violence does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it occurs within a context (see references below). Teens may be combative in hopes of either attaining or retaining social status. If a youth has been raised in an abusive household, he may imitate the violence he has observed. As a result, teens may demonstrate abusive behaviors in relationships. In certain environments, children and teens are taught to use violence to resolve problems they encounter in their everyday lives. To effectively reduce the prevalence of youth violence, networks of social influence must be addressed and moderated.
  
  

The Role of the Amygdala

• Researchers on brain development have observed that teen behavior is greatly influenced by a part of the brain called the amygdala. This region of the brain urges a teen to behave on the basis of instinct and emotion. According to authors Daniel J. Flannery and C. Ronald Huff, children who are exposed to violence and trauma are like soldiers returning from war who suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. These children are likely to act on the basis of memories stored in the amygdala, which may "be easily reawakened by various stimuli and stressors, triggering exaggerated startle responses (Youth Violence, p. 114; see references below)". Thus, children who have been raised in an environment filled with domestic or neighborhood violence may tend to demonstrate violent behavior as a result.
  
  

Accidental Deaths

• Each year, improperly stored firearms fall into the hands of children and teenagers. In certain instances, the consequences result in death or severe injury. Children are fascinated by guns and may not be aware of their firepower. In the eyes of a youth, a firearm may appear to be a novel new toy. Violent accidents resulting from firearms are preventable if their owners always store these weapons unloaded and locked in a secure cabinet.