Several high-risk behaviors increase the likelihood that children and youth might become involved in violent incidents. These include consistently choosing physical fighting as a way to settle a conflict, low achievement in school leading to failure or dropping out, and the use of alcohol or drugs. Identified risk factors include a history of psychological, physical or sexual abuse, lower socioeconomic status with its resultant stresses, racism, frequent moves, recent relocation, immigrant status, living in overcrowded conditions, and emotional or physical disabilities that hamper the ability to learn or demonstrate non-violent ways of handling conflict. Children and youth typically model adult behavior. Interventions directed at decreasing adult violence in the home, community and media would therefore seem to be appropriate strategies for reducing youth violence as well.
Successful interventions incorporate local needs and a sensitivity to the target population.
They may include reducing the incidence of precursors, such as arguments and fighting, that can lead to violence, reducing the occurrence of abuse in high-risk situations, increasing the safety mechanisms of lethal weapons and eliminating unsupervised access to them by children and youths, and incorporating measures to improve socioeconomic status. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury among women, and is linked to numerous other health care problems including depression, drug abuse, and suicide. Nationally, at least 10 battered women are killed each day and almost one-quarter of women seen in emergency rooms have injuries related to domestic violence. Connecticut's domestic violence issues are similar. In 1995, 8.9 per 1,000 couples or 12,229 females age 16 and older were victims of family violence that was reported to police.