This piece documents the collaboration between a team of four University of Pennsylvania students and seven youth partners from across the Greater Philadelphia area who came together to discuss, understand, and take action toward civic issues impacting their communities. As youth arrived at the Civic Engagement Summer Program, a joint Philadelphia…

Each year the Constitutional Rights Foundation creates a mock trial that addresses serious matters facing young people. This year the lesson confronts the recent shootings at U.S. schools and the subsequent criminal trials. The nature of such violence and its causes including unresolved peer conflict, questions of responsibility, peer pressure,…

A pooled cross-section time series model is used to evaluate the effect of the 1977 Canadian firearms legislation on the provincial homicide rate between 1969 and 1989. Results agree with most studies that indicate no significant effect of this legislation on homicide rates. (SLD)

This document contains two issues of a journal on reducing youth gun violence, reprinted from a report by the U.S. Department of Justice. The first issue, part one, provides an overview of programs and initiatives. The second issue, part two, describes prevention and intervention programs. To reduce violence and build healthy communities requires…

Studies firearms behaviors among 835 criminally active male, mostly urban, youth and 1,653 male and female innercity high school students in 4 states. It is evident that the large urban environment encourages youth to be armed and that enforcement activities alone will not be enough to alleviate the problem. (SLD)

Weapons violence is a major public health problem that especially impacts minority youth. Interventions designed to reduce weapon use by youth are categorized as educational/behavioral change, legal, and technological/environmental. Few educational programs currently exist, but those that do largely concern firearm safety courses, public…

These transcripts feature statements and testimony from a Senate hearing on gun-related violence among school children. Opening statements by judiciary committee members Joseph R. Biden, Paul Simon, Herbert Kohl, Strom Thurmond, and John H. Chaffee offer statistics and anecdotes about the increasing presence of guns on school campuses, the…

This report synthesizes the presentations and discussions from a 1993 symposium on comprehensive school health and safety into a blueprint for urban action. The first part of the report summarizes the nature of health and safety problems in urban schools and discusses some of the barriers that hinder integrated solutions. The second part describes…