"AGGRESSION"
by Doswell & Mikles

Aggression is a pervasive problem in our society, and unfortunately young people largely weigh in as perpetrators. According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Center, aggression is described as pushing, hitting, slapping, biting, kicking, hair-pulling, stabbing, shooting, and rape. Other forms include threatening or intimidating others, malicious teasing, taunting, and name-calling, and the less obvious forms include gossiping, spreading rumors, and encouraging others to reject or exclude someone. A history of persistently aggressive behavior from an early age is associated with later aggression and delinquency in adolescence and adulthood. (Loeber and Hay 1997 www.safeyouth.org).

Motion pictures that celebrate violence and glamorize its portrayal may actually reflect a cynical view of how we as a society have become callused toward violence. Quoting the most recent FBI crime study report (1995), James Alan Fox, Dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, said, "The rate at which boys are committing crimes, particularly homicide, is skyrocketing." FBI data lists, among other figures, an increase of 165 percent in the number of male youths, aged 14 to 17 who have committed homicides between 1985 and 1993 (Gun murders, 1995). Supporting this trend is an awareness of a sharp increase in violence at school sites where school children, directly exposed to the reality of violence up close, trade the learning process for one of survival. (Doswell & Mikles, 1995)

Reported problems in schools is consistent with the FBI findings, and suggests trends toward increased violence in school settings. In 1940, the seven top problems in public schools were identified by teachers as talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise, running in the halls, cutting in line, dress-code infractions, and littering. In 1980, the seven top problems in pubic schools were identified as suicide, assault, robbery, rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and pregnancy (Zuckerman, 1993). On April 20, 1999, two high-school seniors from a small town in Colorado, armed with knives, guns, and bombs, executed a heinous assault at Columbine High School. The two boys killed twelve students and one teacher before they killed themselves.

According to the October 1998 issue in the PSI High Newsletter by the Psychology Department at Shippensburg University Volume 24, No. 1, "mental health based prevention, rather than increased punishment or security, is the most effective way of addressing the violence-related issues that do exist."

(excerpt from "Aggression" - by Doswell & Mikles, copyright 1995.)