Joan S. Hoffman, Lyndee M. Knox, and Robert Cohen (eds): Beyond Suppression: Global Perspectives on Youth Violence

Excerpt

Hoffman, Knox, and Cohen seek to offer a global perspective on efforts to explain youth violence and different programs that have been implemented to reduce the prevalence of youth violence. In their insightful book, Beyond Suppression: Global Perspectives on Youth Violence, they effectively describe factors that contribute to youth violence and offer empirically based suggestions to lessen it. They do so by offering case examples of different programs that have been implemented in an effort to eradicate youth violence. Throughout, they provide detailed examples and meticulously explain violence to differentiate between courses of action that do help to stop violence and those that do not. The authors also frequently highlight the importance of using empirical evidence to study programs to ensure that society places its resources into effective programs and policies instead of ones that do not effectively address youth violence. Although researchers increasingly focus on cultural, ethnic and cross-national dimensions of adolescent development (see Levesque 2007), there continues to be a scarcity of efforts that look at programs and policies. This lacuna makes this book especially worthwhile. …