MADD National Youth Summit 2000 Delegates: Youth Attitudes Toward Underage Drinking, Efforts at Prevention, and Social Responsibility

• NCJ Number: 194252
• Author(s): James W. Marquart; Mario A. Davila; Janet L. Mullings
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 22 pages
• Grant Number(s): 200-ATT-Fx-1011
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Corporate Author: National Institute for Victim Studies
• Sale Source: National Institute for Victim Studies
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: National Institute for Victim Studies Research Report No. 1

Annotation

MADD's (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) Youth Summit 2000 was an attempt to organize youth to develop and implement community-level programs to prevent underage drinking; the purpose of the study reported here was to examine the background characteristics of the Youth Summit delegates, their attitudes toward underage drinking, efforts at prevention, and social responsibility.

Abstract

The Summit 2000 brought together high-school students who represented each of the Nation's congressional districts and provided a forum for them to develop their own policy-level recommendations for reducing underage drinking in America. Their average age was 16, and nearly three-quarters were female; most (76 percent) were Anglo. Slightly over half were high school seniors who attended public schools. Nearly two-thirds lived with their biological parents, and 94 percent regarded religion as important. Two-thirds of the Youth Summit delegates reported that there would be "specific consequences" in their homes if they were caught drinking. Over one-half of the delegates (56 percent) thought that their parent or parents had a "pretty good idea" of how many students drank at their school; this compared with 48 percent of the students surveyed by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (n=2,000, ages 12-17). Sixty-nine percent of the delegates thought that there were no situations in which it "would be okay" for high school students to drink alcohol. Sixty-four percent of the delegates and 80 percent of the adults surveyed were opposed to a law that would forbid the sale of all beer, wine, and liquor throughout the Nation; however, 90 percent of the delegates and 78 percent of the adults favored bans on advertisements designed to make drinking appeal to teens. The majority of both groups favored laws that would punish teens for testing positive for any amount of alcohol in their blood. Over 70 percent of delegates and adults surveyed believed that harsher punishments for teens caught drinking would discourage them from obtaining alcohol. Nearly all of the delegates claimed commitment to civic involvement. Large percentages valued teamwork and highly regarded personal involvement as a vehicle for community change. Combining the delegates' appreciation for teamwork and civic involvement with efforts to decrease underage drinking would seem to be an important objective for MADD. 5 tables and 7 notes