Teenage Suicide & Homicide Trends Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Teenage Suicide & Homicide Trends - Essay Example s are the victims) is very likely to lead to a severe disruption of the person’s psychosomatic balance (if able to survive from the relevant attack). On the other hand, there are data that lead to the assumption that race can be a decisive criterion for the criminal behaviour against juveniles. The views of the theory do not seem to agree totally on such an aspect, however it would be rather difficult to formulate a precise assumption since the identification of the exact reasons of a specific criminal behaviour can just be assumed (as already explained above). A series of issues like the personal experiences and stress can severely affect human behaviour and in these terms the criminal behaviour against juveniles could not be considered as having a particular cause. However, the weakness of juveniles to respond to the attack (psychological or physical) is regarded as a common reason for the development of criminal behaviour against them. In the case of suicide, it is also this weakness of juveniles to respond to the pressure of a particular difficulty. The statistics involving in the criminal behaviour against juveniles are indicative of the extension of the problem. More specifically, in accordance with a series of statistics published by the Youth Violence Research Bulletin (2004) ‘between 1981 and 1998, 20,775 juveniles ages 7–17 committed suicide in the United States—nearly as many as were homicide or cancer victims; males were the victims in 78% of these juvenile suicides; over the same period, the suicide rate for American Indian juveniles was far higher than for any other race’. Between 1980 and 2000 52% of juvenile victims were black and 46% white. The rest were American Indians, Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander. (Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 2004) Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for American Indian and Alaska Native youth of 15 -24 years old with such prevailing risk factors as depression and substance abuse. (Youth