Findings: Preliminary assessments suggest that middle and high school youth experience a variety of forms of violence in social and dating relationships. Such experiences have negative academic, behavioral and emotional consequences.

Conclusions: The authors have clearly illuminated the need for addressing the phenomenon of dating violence. The field could benefit from more robust evidenced-based investigations that substantiate that interventions have an impact beyond attitudinal changes toward the behavior. Such academic endeavors will provide a platform to validate the inclusion of such information in a school based curriculum as act as a call for action for broad based interventions.

The definition of community-based approaches to juvenile justice entails any, and ideally all, of the following: 1) Empowerment of communities and youth who grapple with mass over-incarceration, poverty, violence, under-performing schools, a lack of mental health and health care services, and a dearth of opportunities for growth and development. Such empowerment should honor the expertise and leadership of those directly impacted by the issues; 2) Cultural competence that merges legal service delivery, capacity-building, and advising with the cultural traditions, methodologies, and linguistic elements of the populations receiving services, while acknowledging the concrete causes of racial disparities and injustice; 3) Support for the formation of social bonds across structural, perceived, and actual adversarial boundaries; 4) Support from the private and public sectors alike; 5) The ability to hold government agencies, especially law enforcement, accountable through legal structures and requirements, community engagement, and varied cultural methodologies; 6) A foundation in human rights laws and norms.

The status quo juvenile justice system is developmentally unsuitable for children. Work in the NJ Family Lawyer highlights brain research and US Dept. of Health data, which reveal that teenagers exhibit distinct behavior regardless of their race or socio-economic status. Delinquency is normative, but is criminalized depending on the social location of the youth and community involved. This evidence provides rationale for treating children in far less punitive ways. Moreover, traditional juvenile justice creates generations of “disconnected youth.”

Additionally, the status quo system lacks cultural competence. Approaches that call for more professional intervention in the lives of disadvantaged communities, more justice system involvement, significant incarceration, and that fail to recognize the assets and self-determination within these communities, will fail to effect lasting change. The current system transplants children out of their home communities, depletes those communities of social assets, isolates the children in prison, offers them scarce and fragmented services, and expects the children to return home and thrive. Research shows that children are returning home in worse shape than when they departed. Extremely medicalized, evidence-based programs like Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) have proven effective by working with at-risk families and youth in their individual homes, but do not change the disadvantaged surroundings and the dearth of opportunities that the family must grapple with when the program contact ends. Indigenous creation of stronger support systems for those who are tempted to choose crime are the most promising way towards change. Finally, community-based approaches to juvenile justice should be implemented because they cost drastically less than the status quo.

There is a host of community-based approaches to juvenile justice that work: Community-based Alternatives To Detention (ATDs) and Alternatives To Incarceration (ATIs); Balanced And Restorative Justice (victim-offender mediation, restitution, peer juries, youth courts, community service) programming; community engagement task forces; other community organizing efforts; Positive Youth Development (PYD); innovative educational programs; and creative ways of addressing police - youth conflict. Further, “Justice reinvestment” is a key to positive outcomes.

Overwhelming evidence shows that the current juvenile justice system will not lead to safety, justice, cost-effectiveness, or positive life outcomes for anyone except possibly those corporations and officials who directly profit from it. Community-based approaches need support from all sectors, but especially from the legal community and the private sector. We cannot continue to put stock in the current juvenile justice system without being disappointed at the results.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the innovative cross-sectoral work done by the Metropolitan Observatory for street children and youth.

Methods: A survey of 407 students at a large, public university was conducted. The survey instrument contained general measures related to media consumption, including overall television, video game, and internet use, as well as more specific questions related to particular types of media, such as pornography. For the dependent variables, questions were included that measured both attitudes and behaviors related to aggression, sexuality, and body image.

Results: Consistent with predictions, media use impacted both attitudes and behaviors related to aggression, sexuality, and body image. Specifically, overall television consumption led to increased levels of aggression (r=.18, pr=.20, pr=.24, pr=.42, pr=.40, p

Conclusions: The media continue to play an important role in the development of attitudes and behaviors. It is warranted, therefore, to continue to investigate what media can cause negative outcomes, as well as to determine how those outcomes vary based on race and gender.