The first wave of this youth violence epidemic hit urban America. For the most part, poor neighborhoods of color in cities greater than five hundred thousand were affected more. That was the first wave of America's youth violence epidemic and those are the rates that are beginning to fall. Small town, middle class, rural America is beginning to experience or is experiencing what may be considered a second wave in this epidemic. There may also be a third wave involving girls and violence.
Girls now make up one quarter of the adolescents arrested for violent crimes.
That's pretty huge. There may even be another wave in which younger and younger children get involved in this problem of violence. So, while the national rates are coming down, there are these caveats, these places where children who were a little less vulnerable to what many are calling a toxic environment, are now showing that we all are, in fact, vulnerable. Yes, we had an epidemic. Yes, we still have pockets where the rates are not declining and, in fact, are going up.