Adolescent: Psychosocial Development
1. Being a juvenile in any one’s life is part of the stage of development. The behavior patterns of juveniles are influenced in part by what goes on in the environment in which they live. Family members, friends, and peers all influence for the juvenile. It is sometimes accompanied by a desire for material things, fashion, peer pressure, cash and more. Social changes can intensified those needs and create anxiety for adolescents and thus they commit delinquent acts.
In 2010, there were 1,642,600 adolescence arrests for all crimes that took up to 12.5% of all age offenses in the United States and courts with juvenile jurisdiction disposed more than 1.3 million delinquency cases (http://www.ojjdp.gov). In detail, Juveniles were involved in 1 in 10 arrests for murder in 2010, about 1 in 4 arrests for robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, and disorderly conduct, and about 1 in 5 arrests for larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft according to The Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention.
As stated in the most recent available data from FBI Arrest Statistics, the juvenile arrests percentage had dropped 43% from reaching its peak in 1996 as a result of the prevention influence, when consolidated with intervention and strengthened juvenile justice systems. There are many effective Delinquency Prevention Programs such as Adolescent Diversion Project (Michigan State University), Adolescent Transitions Program or Families And Schools Together (FAST), which provide support and develop juvenile social skills as well as emotion control (http://www.crimesolutions.gov). Another possible reason that holds adolescent offender accountable is explosion to gasoline lead. Kevin Drum (2013) reported in the latest issue of Mother Jones that gasoline lead might explain as much as 90% of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century. Studies examining lead exposure show that higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher juvenile arrest rates for violent crimes. As a result, juvenile arrests were the first to increase after the rise in leaded gasoline emissions, and the first to fall after the United States eliminated leaded gasoline (http://www.motherjones.com).

2. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, and the countless other horrific school violence that has taken place in the last couple years has made Americans realize the severity of school safety. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 1,929,400 school crimes were recorded by 82,800 schools during the 2009- 2010 school year (https://nces.ed.gov). In 2011, among students ages 12–18, there were about 1,246,000 nonfatal victimizations at school, which include 648,600 victims of theft and 597,500 victims of violence. Bullying is a widespread problem in American school campuses, about 28 percent of students ages 12–18 reported being bullied at school during the school year (http://nces.ed.gov).
Many security measures were taken by schools in order to limit crime rates. In 2011, about 77 percent of students ages 12–18 reported observing one or more security cameras to monitor the school during the day at their schools and 70 percent of students reported the presence of security guards and/or assigned police officers. The majority of public schools reported that they required visitors to sign in or check in. They also limited access to social networking websites from school computers, controlled access to school buildings by locking or monitoring doors, and prohibited the use of cell phones and text messaging devices during school hours.
School should be a safe place for education as it is also a place where youth futures develop. Even though some public schools have taken serious disciplinary actions against specific offenses, students should make sure that they have a positive experience at school themselves. Students should be careful with strangers and if someone picks on them, they should find their friends and walk away. In case of becoming bully victims, they should talk to an adult they trust to solve the problem.