Youth and School Violence When Term Paper

At the age of 23, the alcohol abuse factor was replaced with a three-item lifetime alcohol disorder screen instrument that emphasized on binge drinking and five items from the Drug Abuse Screening Test. Other behavior problems consisted of stealing, selling drugs, gang violence, carrying a weapon, arson, burglary, trespassing, pregnancy and drunk driving.

The results showed that early drinkers were more apt than nondrinkers to use other substances, steal and have school problems. Compared to nondrinkers, early drinkers at 7 were 19 times more likely to engage in weekly smoking any hard drug use and 14 times more likely to be involved with weekly marijuana use; 4.5 times more apt to steal; 3 times more sure to be sent out of or skip class; 2 times more likely to often miss school and 1.5 times more prone toward having poor grades.

Early experimenters were also more likely to engage in problem behaviors compared with nondrinkers, but less apt to be involved with such actions than early drinkers. Compared to experimenters, drinkers at age 7 were 20.5 times more likely to engage in weekly marijuana use, 8 times more involved with hard drug use; 5 times more prone toward weekly smoking; 2 times more apt to steal; and 1.5 to 2 times more inclined to be frequently absent, have poor grades and exhibit behavioral problems in the classroom.Older adolescents continue this negative behavior with early drinkers more apt to have problems than nondrinkers. Early experimenters also remain more likely to exhibit problem behavior than older nondrinkers. Likewise, 23-year-old drinkers were more prone to miss work, engage in substance abuse and exhibit criminal and violent behavior.

The researchers concluded that conduct problems such as violence, delinquency, criminal behavior and substance abuse in school is most likely influence by other biological, psychosocial and cultural factors. Finding risk factors of students as young as 7th grade that lead to such issues can be challenging. However, it is impressive that grade 7 drinking status alone could account for 9 to 10% of the variance in the composite measures of problem behaviors in grade 12 and age 23. Thus, "early adolescent drinking should be considered among the important risk factors for problem behaviors during the transition to young adulthood."

Works Cited

Ellickson, Phyllis, Tucker, Joan and Klein, David. "Ten-year prospective study of public health….....