Childhood in the US 'safer than in the 1970s'

[hack89]

Young people in the United States are safer than in the 1970s or 1990s, according to a long-term study.

Duke University's Child Well-Being Index has been recording the state of childhood in the US since 1975.

Children and teenagers are less likely to be victims of violent crime, while risky behaviours like binge drinking and smoking cigarettes are in decline.

The Index, which draws upon official data from sources like the US Department of Justice, the Census Bureau, the US Department of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Center for Health Statistics, shows the likelihood of a teenager becoming the victim of violent crime is now lower than in 1994 and considerably lower than in 1975.

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-30578830

Some good news to start the new year.

[Duckhunter935]

1. good news indeed

hope we can continue to make it even safer

[Politicalboi]

2. If you don't count guns

I'll take the 70's thank you. Back then we didn't have to worry about guns in school. Knives maybe, but not guns. Kids walked in groups, and paid more attention to their surroundings instead of constant texting. I wouldn't be surprised that the binge drinking ONLY went down because of Marijuana use. And kids stay in more to play video games instead of interacting with other humans. Technology keeps us home. When you stay indoors and stop playing in yards and parks, yes it is safer indoors. We can thank video technology for this. Also kids are fatter thanks again to videos. TV was the start of the end to fit and healthy kids.

[hack89]

3. The mids- to late-1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history.

The mids- to late-1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history.[citation needed]

January 5, 1970: Washington, DC, Tyrone Perry, 15, was shot to death at Hine Junior High School.[200]
May 4, 1970: Kent, Ohio, During protests of the Vietnam War on the college Campus of Kent State University, Armed National Guard Soldiers opened fire on unarmed students killing four people.[201]

May 15, 1970: Jackson, Mississippi, One student was killed and twelve others injured when police open fired on students gathered to protest the military presence in Cambodia

[202]* February 2, 1971: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Teacher Samson L. Freedman, 56, was shot to death as he left Morris E. Leeds School, by Kevin Simmons, 14. Freedman had suspended Simmons earlier in the day for cursing in the hallway.[203]

November 8, 1971: Grove, Oklahoma, School custodian, Jim "James" Underwood brought a .22 caliber revolver to school hidden in a brown paper bag. School principal, T. J. Melton, 49, was shot in the left shoulder, left ear and in the top of his head, according to published reports. He died around 9 a.m. and Underwood was charged the next day with first-degree murder.[204]

November 11, 1971: Spokane, Washington, Former MIT student Larry J. Harmon, 21, entered St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church on the Gonzaga University campus armed with a .22 caliber rifle. Harmon killed the caretaker, 68-year-old Hilary Kunz, and upon emerging from the church, wounded four more people before police officers shot and killed him. Harmon was described by his father as a religious fanatic who believed that he had seen the devil and that Christ was an imposter.[205]

January 5, 1972: Washington, DC, Fifth-grade teacher Margaret Brooks, 57, was shot to death in front of her students by her estranged husband James A. Brooks.[206]

February 26, 1973: Richmond, Virginia, Wayne Phillips, 17, was shot to death when he was caught between two youths who were fighting in the hallway of Armstrong High School.[207]

October 1, 1973: Elmwood Park, Illinois, Elmwood Park Community High School student Cynthia Schulze was shot and killed in the hallway between classes by student William Rossi, with whom she was probably not acquainted. Rossi then ran out of the school and shot himself to death in an alley nearby.[208]

January 17, 1974: Chicago, Illinois, Elementary school principal Rudolph Jezek, Jr., 52, was shot to death in his office by Steven Guy, 14, a former student said to be angry at being transferred from the school to a social adjustment center.[209]

March 22, 1974: Brownstown, Indiana, Jessie Blevins, 48, athletic director at Brownstown Central High School, was shot to death in the school parking lot by a 17-year-old student.[210]

December 30, 1974: Olean, New York, Regents scholar Anthony Barbaro, 17, armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school.[211][212]

February 18, 1975: Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, Marist College student Shelley Lynn Sperling was shot and killed by a scorned suitor, Louis o. Acevedo, in the Marist College cafeteria.[213]

March 18, 1975: Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 16-year-old Stephen Goods, a bystander, is shot and killed during a fight between other teens.[214]

September 11, 1975: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. Grant High School student Randy Truitt was shot and killed by James Briggs at the school, leaving several others injured.[215]

February 12, 1976: Detroit, Michigan, Intruders shot five Murray-Wright High School students after an apparent dispute over one of the intruders girlfriends.[216]

June 12, 1976: California State University, Custodian Edward Charles Allaway, 37, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the library on the California State University, Fullerton campus killing 7, and wounding 2.[citation needed]

November 10, 1976: Detroit, Michigan, Second grade teacher Bettye McCaster, 45, was shot to death in front of her 29 students at Burt Elementary School, by her estranged husband, Al Lewis.[217]
April 7, 1977: Whitharral, Texas, High School principal M. O. Tripp was shot to death on the front steps of the school by Ricardo Lopez, 17.[218]

February 9, 1978: St. Albans, West Virginia, A 15-year-old student was shot and killed by another student at Hayes Junior High School.[citation needed]

February 22, 1978: Lansing, Michigan, After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, killed one student and wounded a second with a Luger pistol at Everett High School.[212]

April 26, 1978: Dallas, Texas, Woodrow Porter, 38, who was a janitor at Paul Dunbar Elementary School, was shot to death by the 56-year-old grandmother of an 8-year-old that was allegedly spanked by Porter earlier.[219]

May 18, 1978: Austin, Texas, John Daniel Christian, 13, son of Lyndon B. Johnson's former press secretary George Christian, shot to death his English teacher, Wilbur Grayson, 29, with his father's .22 caliber rifle in front of approximately 30 classmates. John Christian was arrested and charged but was not prosecuted. He spent two years in a mental hospital. He is now a practicing attorney in Austin, Texas.[220]

January 29, 1979: San Diego, California, Brenda Spencer opened fire on Grover Cleveland Elementary School from the window of her home across the street, killing two adults and wounding nine others, eight of whom were children.[221] The shootings inspired the song I Don't Like Mondays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States#1970s

You were saying?

[Politicalboi]

12. Ah yeah

Wow, that's a lot of violence there. But I was a mere child in the 70's. I lived in a white community bubble of Simi Valley for most of my childhood.

Kids don't go out and do things like we used to. They play games inside more than outside. So how can this study even say what they are saying. They do account for the kids staying inside. To me that is why it's "safer" now. Can't get wet when it's raining if you stay inside.

[Posteritatis]

13. I suppose your anecdotes trump a 40-year study. (nt)

[Dreamer Tatum]

32. Why don't you read it and write a rejoinder?

Sounds like you're about 100x smarter than the morons who did the study.

[Recursion]

34. Outdoor *sports* participation is much higher than 40 (or even 20) years ago

Though that extra time as well as the longer school days have eaten into unstructured outdoor time. Where do you get the idea that kids don't play outside anymore?

[Fumesucker]

38. I live about a half mile from a major recreational facility, football, soccer, softball

It is basically deserted other than when there is some organized sporting event or practice for the same, then the parking lot is packed.

There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood but they don't use the facility unless and until someone drives them there, I never see them walking to the fields to play pick up ball or just run around.

I use the large parking lot to ride laps on my bike when I'd rather listen to music on headphones than have to pay attention to cars trying to kill me so I have a good grasp of what goes on and doesn't go on there. Kids may be playing more organized sports than in the past but that's not remotely the same thing as going out every day to just play in the open.

[Recursion]

39. I'm with you on that. Didn't a poll recently show that a majority of Americans favor jail time

for parents who let children under 13 play outdoors unsupervised?

[B2G]

5. Npt really

The mids- to late-1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history

January 5, 1970: Washington, DC, Tyrone Perry, 15, was shot to death at Hine Junior High School.[200]

May 4, 1970: Kent, Ohio, During protests of the Vietnam War on the college Campus of Kent State University, Armed National Guard Soldiers opened fire on unarmed students killing four people.[201]

May 15, 1970: Jackson, Mississippi, One student was killed and twelve others injured when police open fired on students gathered to protest the military presence in Cambodia

[202]* February 2, 1971: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Teacher Samson L. Freedman, 56, was shot to death as he left Morris E. Leeds School, by Kevin Simmons, 14. Freedman had suspended Simmons earlier in the day for cursing in the hallway.[203]

November 8, 1971: Grove, Oklahoma, School custodian, Jim "James" Underwood brought a .22 caliber revolver to school hidden in a brown paper bag. School principal, T. J. Melton, 49, was shot in the left shoulder, left ear and in the top of his head, according to published reports. He died around 9 a.m. and Underwood was charged the next day with first-degree murder.[204]

November 11, 1971: Spokane, Washington, Former MIT student Larry J. Harmon, 21, entered St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church on the Gonzaga University campus armed with a .22 caliber rifle. Harmon killed the caretaker, 68-year-old Hilary Kunz, and upon emerging from the church, wounded four more people before police officers shot and killed him. Harmon was described by his father as a religious fanatic who believed that he had seen the devil and that Christ was an imposter.[205]

January 5, 1972: Washington, DC, Fifth-grade teacher Margaret Brooks, 57, was shot to death in front of her students by her estranged husband James A. Brooks.[206]

February 26, 1973: Richmond, Virginia, Wayne Phillips, 17, was shot to death when he was caught between two youths who were fighting in the hallway of Armstrong High School.[207]

October 1, 1973: Elmwood Park, Illinois, Elmwood Park Community High School student Cynthia Schulze was shot and killed in the hallway between classes by student William Rossi, with whom she was probably not acquainted. Rossi then ran out of the school and shot himself to death in an alley nearby.[208]

January 17, 1974: Chicago, Illinois, Elementary school principal Rudolph Jezek, Jr., 52, was shot to death in his office by Steven Guy, 14, a former student said to be angry at being transferred from the school to a social adjustment center.[209]

March 22, 1974: Brownstown, Indiana, Jessie Blevins, 48, athletic director at Brownstown Central High School, was shot to death in the school parking lot by a 17-year-old student.[210]
December 30, 1974: Olean, New York, Regents scholar Anthony Barbaro, 17, armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school.[211][212]

February 18, 1975: Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, Marist College student Shelley Lynn Sperling was shot and killed by a scorned suitor, Louis o. Acevedo, in the Marist College cafeteria.[213]

March 18, 1975: Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 16-year-old Stephen Goods, a bystander, is shot and killed during a fight between other teens.[214]

September 11, 1975: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. Grant High School student Randy Truitt was shot and killed by James Briggs at the school, leaving several others injured.[215]

February 12, 1976: Detroit, Michigan, Intruders shot five Murray-Wright High School students after an apparent dispute over one of the intruders girlfriends.[216]

June 12, 1976: California State University, Custodian Edward Charles Allaway, 37, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the library on the California State University, Fullerton campus killing 7, and wounding 2.[citation needed]

November 10, 1976: Detroit, Michigan, Second grade teacher Bettye McCaster, 45, was shot to death in front of her 29 students at Burt Elementary School, by her estranged husband, Al Lewis.[217]
April 7, 1977: Whitharral, Texas, High School principal M. O. Tripp was shot to death on the front steps of the school by Ricardo Lopez, 17.[218]

February 9, 1978: St. Albans, West Virginia, A 15-year-old student was shot and killed by another student at Hayes Junior High School.[citation needed]

February 22, 1978: Lansing, Michigan, After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, killed one student and wounded a second with a Luger pistol at Everett High School.[212]

April 26, 1978: Dallas, Texas, Woodrow Porter, 38, who was a janitor at Paul Dunbar Elementary School, was shot to death by the 56-year-old grandmother of an 8-year-old that was allegedly spanked by Porter earlier.[219]

May 18, 1978: Austin, Texas, John Daniel Christian, 13, son of Lyndon B. Johnson's former press secretary George Christian, shot to death his English teacher, Wilbur Grayson, 29, with his father's .22 caliber rifle in front of approximately 30 classmates. John Christian was arrested and charged but was not prosecuted. He spent two years in a mental hospital. He is now a practicing attorney in Austin, Texas.[220]

January 29, 1979: San Diego, California, Brenda Spencer opened fire on Grover Cleveland Elementary School from the window of her home across the street, killing two adults and wounding nine others, eight of whom were children.[221] The shootings inspired the song I Don't Like Mondays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States#1970s

[treestar]

6. Video games

are not the only sedentary amusement. We used to play cards in the 70s.

There is still sports. Kids will always run around.

People read before TV and that didn't burn any more calories.

Your marijuana comment has zero proof, but it's probably better than drinking.

[Posteritatis]

15. My neighborhood feels more like a playground than a street when school isn't in session

And that's not even specific to the younger kids either.

[treestar]

21. My sister's neighborhood is like that

It depends on the age of the neighborhood. When I was a kid, it was all kids in the streets and yards and woods and school playgrounds.

Now it's not, but that's because it is old and retired people.

[Posteritatis]

22. Mine used to be pretty quiet; a bunch of families w/young kids arrived in the last few years

Pretty much through to dusk most days, and pretty similar in various nearby ones. Definitely not seeing the "Kids These Days(tm) are all hermits" thing around here.

[Politicalboi]

16. Cards to video games

Yes we used to play War, 52 pick-up Monopoly and Yathzee, Sorry. I am 54 and play video games. But those games are nothing like cards. Besides, with cards you need other players, actual people. Today, friends are people on a computer. Some you've known all your life, some only from online, some you don't even know, or care to. LOL! If Marijuana has no effect on big alcohol, then why do they help keep it illegal? Budweiser doesn't want kids to try pot, they might like it better. I know I have no proof, but yes, Marijuana is better than drinking.

[NCTraveler]

8. I find it amazing the way people can see things so differently.

When I say that I am not saying you are wrong. It is just clear that our daily perceptions are completely different. Every time a youth athletic complex is upgraded in my area it is made larger, not smaller. Every night of the week it is hard to find a parking spot at these complexes. The exact same Boy Scout Pack my brother was a part of growing up is now over twice the size. Movies and the mall are packed with young people every night and on weekends. These are large theaters. In almost every instance I see these youngsters in groups, not alone. I don't seem to be surrounded by kids who don't interact with other humans. If I were, I would directly relate it to poor parenting, not video games.

I wouldn't be surprised if binge drinking was down due to the use of other more popular drugs. That seems more like common sense than anything else.

[GreatGazoo]

9. Changes in food/diet, not TV, are to blame for the rise in obesity

Video games burn more calories than TV, equivalent to walking 3 MPH:

Such studies are complicated by the fact that even regular video games—the ones so often blamed for the present rates of childhood obesity—may not be as passive as you think. A decade ago, a physiologist named Arlette Perry at the University of Miami worried that her 10-year-old son Thomas was spending a lot of time with a controller in his hand. To measure the effects of chronic gaming, she studied her son and 20 other children as they played Tekken 3 on a Sony PlayStation in her lab. She found that the fighting game increased the kids’ heart rates and blood pressure to the same extent as walking at 3 miles per hour. Children burned roughly twice as many calories playing Tekken 3 as they did sitting in one place, which translates to an extra 40 to 80 calories burned every hour. In other words, this traditional, “passive” video game was itself providing children with a form of exercise.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/04/are_video_games_making_kids_fat_screen_time_and_childhood_obesity_.html

[Brickbat]

17. And people say Republicans are anti-science.

[jeff47]

20. You forgot to demand they leave your lawn. (nt)

[Recursion]

33. You're joking, right? Gun violence is WAY down

The early 90s and early 70s were two peaks of gun violence; we're way way down from those levels.

[NewDeal_Dem]

4. depends on where you lived

[hack89]

11. Care to amplify that comment?

what areas are more dangerous now then they were in the 70's?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. They're probably looking for an article that explains

how where you lived profited from slavery.

[GreatGazoo]

7. Deaths from distracted driving, prescription drugs, cancer and being tasered have all increased.

421,000 Americans injured by texting while driving. 25% of teens admit to texting at least once every time they drive.

http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/facts-and-statistics.html

400,000+ Americans die every year from prescription drug interactions and other medical "mistakes"

Nearly 1,000 Americans have been tasered to death since 2001 and the number rises every year.

http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-follows-are-names-where-known.html

Odds of being diagnosed with cancer nearly doubled. WHO expects rate of cancer to double again in the next 20 years; especially lung, colon, liver and brain cancers as the environment becomes increasingly toxic.

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/02/cancer-rate-on-the-rise/357708/

[hack89]

10. But the overall chances of premature death have declined

lets not forget that there a lot more people in America - rates may go down with absolute numbers may remain static or even increase. That is why it is important to look at rates.

[kiva]

14. And yet heliocopter parents as a significant number

are a phenomenon now. Too many people watching too much TV have convinced themselves that their children are at significant risk from what...terrorists? Pedophiles? Rogue rhinoceros?

[Politicalboi]

18. Maybe I need to get out more

[pipi_k]

19. Safer in some respects

not so safe in others.


Thinking back to my own childhood in the 50s and early 60s we did some pretty dangerous things back then.

Rollerskating with no helmets or knee/elbow pads

Bicycle riding no helmets

Eating raw cake batter (containing raw eggs - OMG Salmonella!)

Dangerous playground equipment

Aspirin for fever (who ever heard of Reyes Syndrome?)

We played with toys that were probably loaded with mercury and lead and godonlyknows what else in them

Our parents smoked in the house. In the car. Filling our little lungs up with deadly toxins.


Nowadays you don't hear much of those sorts of things.

[Posteritatis]

23. I kinda miss my old neighborhood's farcically dangerous playground equipment

It was one of those oldschool grid-of-steel-bars things like the one at the top of this article.

I kind of use it as my yardstick for figuring out whether I'm worrying too much about one safety issue or another today. There's some stuff I'm glad is less prevalent for contemporary kids - the mercury you mention, basic protective gear for biking or skating, a general decline in violent crimes of all sorts - but there are the odd risks that I feel are worth, well, the risk, as opposed to pushing for perfect guaranteed 100% safety in all things. (That's not only impossible; it's not at all worth the effort most of the time.)

[alphafemale]

25. I was talking with some of my friends I have known since early grade school about exactly this.

(Early childhood friends reconnected through FB.)

We have such great memories of how fun it was.

[treestar]

30. My little brother fell off one of those half dome ones

and broke his arm.

A kid with a leg or arm cast was a relatively frequent thing in school.

My elementary school had a hardtop area with toys on it. One was an approximately 5 by 5' raised platform with ladders up to it! About 7 feet off the ground. It had railings. No one ever fell as far as I know, but what a dumb idea!

[LWolf]

26. Yet I think with nostalgia

of my pre-teen and teenage years in the 70s, and what today's youth don't get.

I spent those years free. Free to go where I wanted, with whom I wanted; to get there by bus, by bike, or by any adult who would drive me. To be gone as long as I wanted, as long as I stayed within general guidelines. Trusted to amuse myself without oversight or "structured activities." And yes, being teens, we sometimes did stupid things.

Yet I've at least experienced unfettered freedom from micro-management, from anything more than very generalized rules; with time to do what I wished with that freedom.

I've certainly never experienced that again as an adult.

My best friend in the world, still, has been my best friend since we were 7. We spent much of that unfettered time together, and we both still talk about our common stories from that time on a regular basis.

[pipi_k]

36. Yep we didn't need

no stinkin' play dates

WTF.

Play dates!!????


We were Free Range kids

We rode our bikes, played in the street, walked down to the railroad tracks and followed them to a popular hangout spot underneath a dry bridge.

We played in the autumn leaves, raked into piles in the gutters on the street.

We had crabapple and acorn wars.

Took the bus downtown and rode the escalators and elevators for hours on end in the multi-level department stores.

Even my own kids, born in the early 70s, were Free Range.


Just when the hell did play become an organized event that parents ruin for their kids?

[LWolf]

37. When the drumbeats of fear

became too loud. Everything is too scary, too risky.

I don't know if the world is really more dangerous today, if it's been made more dangerous by those very drumbeats, making fear and the things we fear accepted as reality, if it's a factor of increased population, or something else.

I know it's sure different. Safer? From some things, maybe. Better? Not in all things.

[JI7]

27. this is good news and shows we can continually try to improve things

the smoking thing is one that really stands out to me. it does seem like i see fewer young people smoking every few years. most of the people i see smoking are usually older.

[DiverDave]

28. In the '60's we played outside, by the river, till dark

There were homeless guys down there, I'll never forget a guy
telling us to go home, that it wasn't a place for kids.
He was kind to us, but firm in shooing us off.

I wouldn't let my kids play anywhere near that place now.
Different time.

[Jamastiene]

31. I guess so.

Everything that is dangerous is homogenized, pasteurized, under a thick layer of almost-impossible-to-open plastic, a PITA to use, and sealed with caps that are almost impossible for even adults to open. Not that all of that is a bad thing. Most of it is a good idea, except that damn almost-impossible-to-open plastic that so many things are packaged in. That shit needs to go.

I remember when Tylenol didn't have all that extra packaging. I also remember when someone poisoned a bunch of people by tampering with the pills. After that, I remember when they added all the stuff that makes it hard to open too.

I'm surprised my generation or any generation before it is still alive, to be honest.

[gollygee]

35. How much of that is because parents don't let their kids outside?

My kids are allowed to play outside but you'd be surprised how many parents won't let even older kids out of arm's reach ever.