Youth Violence

ASK YOURSELF -- would you ever invite someone into your home to teach your children that violence is a good way to solve problems, that it will likely be rewarded and that it causes no pain?Of course not. Yet we effectively do this every day. Our children watch an average of 28 hours of television each week. By high school graduation, most teen-agers have spent more time in front of television than in school.And what are they watching? Kids leaving elementary school have seen 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of televised violence.

As police sift through the facts of last weekend's deadly brawl on a football field at a Howard County high school, one contributing factor has emerged: underage drinking. Some of the participants in the fight, in which an 18-year-old was killed by a blow to the head with an aluminum baseball bat, appeared to be intoxicated. A party at a house near the football field was raided that night, and police issued 15 citations for underage drinking. Experts say alcohol and youth violence often intersect, sometimes with tragic results.

Mama Kay is trying to keep her actors focused. No easy task because most of them aren't actors. They're East Baltimore teen-agers who signed up for summer jobs and ended up on stage."

See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What Can Be Done About It James Garbarino Penguin / 304 pages / $25.95 In Girl World, the primeval land of catty, jealous adolescent females that was described in such colorful and alarming detail by Rosalind Wiseman in Queen Bees and Wannabes and Rachel Simmons in Odd Girl Out, baby boomer parents found their worst nightmares about their daughters confirmed. The sugar-and-spice darlings might still look pretty in pink, but they could be just as power-hungry and aggressive as their combative, in-your-face brothers.

After being forced to scuttle a University of Maryland conference on genetic links to violent crime earlier this year, federal officials are again mired in controversy over research aimed at rescuing the country from violent crime.The dispute concerns a proposed study on the causes and prevention of violent crime among youths, which has climbed alarmingly in recent years. A report by the National Crime Analysis Project at Northeastern University, for example, found that the number of 17-year-olds arrested for murder rose 121 percent from 1985 through 1991.

The departure of Donald DeVore marks the end of yet another secretary who has failed to turn around Maryland's most troubled agency, the Department of Juvenile Services. Mr. DeVore announced Thursday that he would not seek reappointment and was considering career opportunities outside the state. His withdrawal perhaps just saves Gov. Martin O'Malley from having to fire him so that the department, which has been plagued by persistent organizational and security problems, can finally begin to move ahead.

Almost 200 people from public and private agencies attended the Carroll County Response to Family Violence Conference, a daylong program of speakers and workshops on child abuse and youth violence at Carroll Community College. The program Friday was organized by the county's Local Management Board and the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council for public and private organizations, with a $37,000 state grant from the Office of Crime Control and Prevention. Clifton Files, a lawyer and social worker with Family and Children's Services of Baltimore County, closed the session by recounting the effect on his family after his father murdered his mother when Files was a 7-year-old boy in a small Indiana town.

WASHINGTON -- Over the past dozen years, the U.S. Department of Education has poured nearly $6 billion into an ambitious yet flawed program that has fallen far short of its mission to control violence and narcotics abuse in the nation's public schools.Billed as the federal government's largest program to deter student drug use and aggression, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act provides more than $500 million annually to local school districts with virtually no strings attached.

WASHINGTON -- Saying that government alone can't stem black-on-black crime, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson called yesterday for a moral crusade in black communities across the country to "stop the violence and save our children.""If change is to come, it must come from the bottom up, not top down," Mr. Jackson told a conference on youth violence organized by his national Rainbow Coalition. "Dr. King said that the only way to get someone off your back is to stand up. . . . If change is to come, the victims of violence -- the black community -- must stand up."

Tavon Middleton was known for his fade-away jump shot that routinely sailed through the metal hoop at his neighborhood basketball court in Northeast Baltimore, across from Clifton Park.Yesterday, a day after the 15-year-old was gunned down in front of his home, his friends wrote a tribute to their slain friend on the court: "R.I.P. Tavon, 1983-1998, You'll Be Missed."It is a simple statement that speaks to a city struggling to curtail youth violence that continues, despite an ambitious initiative launched by police in January to clamp down on young offenders.