by Jennifer C. Friday

About the author: Jennifer C. Friday is an assistant professor of psychology at Morris Brown College and a behavioral scientist at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, both in Atlanta, Georgia.

Violence among young people is a growing problem in communities across America, taking a substantial toll in loss of life, physical and mental injury, and economic costs. The problem of violence in society is being brought into the school rooms around the country.

Young people are disproportionately represented both as victims and as perpetrators of interpersonal violence in the United States. Teenagers are more likely to be victims of violence than are persons in any other age group. The Bureau of Justice reports that 37 percent of the violent crime victimizations of youths ages twelve to fifteen years occur on...