The Link Between Child Abuse and Street Violence
Most people don’t shoot someone because they had a fight with their girlfriend, or someone owes them twenty bucks. People get jealous every day. Lots of folks loan money they’ll never get back, but violence never enters their minds. The very thought of shooting someone is crazy, right? But for some people, whose lives have been steeped in turmoil and violence, it is the only response they know. The fact is: There can be no widespread violence without the learned experience of violence.
In a study of 676 children, the links between early physical abuse and later aggression and delinquency were clear. Participants who had been abused or neglected were 38% more likely to have been arrested for a violent crime, and 53% more likely to have been arrested as a juvenile.
The study reported, “Those who had been physically abused in the first 5 years of life were at greater risk for being arrested as juveniles for violent and nonviolent, crime. Moreover, physically abused youth were less likely to have graduated from high school and more likely to have been fired in the past year, to have been a teen parent, and to have been pregnant or impregnated someone in the past year while not married.”
These abused and neglected kids are the young adults who now, when faced by difficulty, find a gun and shoot someone. So far in 2022, they have killed more than a dozen people in Indianapolis, placing Indianapolis among the top gun violence cities per capita in the country. These statistics linking childhood abuse and neglect are real, and came from interviews with 29-year-olds who reported the abuse they suffered in their own lives, and related how it has led to violent actions they have perpetrated against others.
Where are we as a civilization—an overwhelmingly Christian country—that children are abused in numbers that swell the cemeteries? People who do not parent well should not parent, and children should not have children. People give more thought to whether or not to get a dog than they do in deciding if parenting a child is a good match for their skills and interests. To create a great community, we need great parents, who love and support their children. If we cannot stem the tide of damaged youth, we will never stem the tide of violence in our city or any other.
Report abuse. No child should have to live in fear.
Nancy
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