The attorney general and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were in Chicago Wednesday to meet with local officials, parents, and students to discuss the vicious beating of a 16-year-old high school student whose killing last month was captured on a cell phone video. Derrion Albert, an honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School, was attacked when he got caught up in a mob of teens about six blocks from school. Video shows him curled up on the sidewalk as fellow teens kick him and hit him with splintered railroad ties. So far, four teens have been charged in his death.
Gov't: Over 60 percent of kids exposed to violence
WASHINGTON (AP) - October 7, 2009 A leading criminologist cautioned that the survey may be lumping
serious and minor incidents together.
More than 60 percent of children surveyed were exposed to
violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly,
according to data compiled by the department. The survey's authors
defined exposure to violence as being a victim, or having witnessed
violence, or learning about violence against a relative, friend, or
hearing about a threat to their school or home.
That approach raised questions for some.
"What concerns me when you hear numbers like this is that in
their attempt to be inclusive, which is commendable, the definition
of violence becomes so broad that the results lack real meaning,"
said James Alan Fox, criminal justice professor at Northeastern
University. "If you broaden the definition of violence so much,
then most people will be included."
Nearly half of all children surveyed were assaulted at least
once in the past year, and about 6 percent were victimized
sexually, the survey found.
"Those numbers are astonishing, and they are unacceptable,"
Holder said in Chicago, where he was meeting with local officials
to discuss the disturbing beating death of a high school student by
other teens.
"We simply cannot stand for an epidemic of violence that robs
our youth of their childhood and perpetuates a cycle in which
today's victims become tomorrow's criminals," Holder said.
For example, the survey's definition of sexual victimization
includes rape, attempted rape, sexual harrassment, or flashing.
Among the survey's other findings:
- Nearly one in ten children said they saw one family member
assault another in the past year.
- More than one-half of the children, about 57 percent, reported
having been assaulted at some point in their life.
- Thirteen percent reported having been physically bullied in
the last year.
The results were based on telephone interviews of 4,549 kids and
adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008.
The National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence was
sponsored by the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, with help from the Centers for Disease
Control.
