On October 7, 2009, The Department of Justice released the new OJJDP Bulletin, Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey, which summarizes the findings of the pioneering National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, the most comprehensive study of its kind. This survey found that just over 60 percent of the Nation's youth have been exposed to violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly. The types of violence to which children were exposed included assault with a weapon, sexual victimization, child maltreatment, and dating violence. Nearly 1 in 2 children had been physically assaulted at least once in the past year, with just over 1 in 10 injured in an assault. For more than 10 years, OJJDP has been a national leader in addressing this problem. In June 1999, OJJDP launched the Safe Start Initiative to broaden knowledge about and promote community investment in evidence-based strategies for reducing the impact of children's exposure to violence. The initiative's Safe Start Center is a national resource for information and training to communities that are implementing these strategies. Other OJJDP activities reported in this newsletter pertain to grant programs for youth mentoring initiatives and programs that address computer-related predatory crimes against children. Also reported is the launching of the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency's Web site, which offers resources to help Federal staff plan, support, and improve comprehensive community initiatives for youth and families. Also mentioned are OJJDP's involvement in promoting after-school programs and the reception of an award by an OJJDP-sponsored gang-reduction program. An annotated listing of recent OJJDP publications
OJJDP News @ a Glance, September/October 2009
NCJ Number
228325
Date Published
September 2009
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This newsletter of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) reports on OJJDP's recent and ongoing activities, including OJJDP's decade-long effort under the Safe Start Initiative to address children's exposure to violence.
Abstract