Marietta, GA – While Bryan is away, today’s article is written by a special contributor, Kasey Eister.
The youth of today are our future tomorrow. How that future looks depends on the choices that our youth make from very young ages, impacting them in their own futures and consequently impacting those around them.
In an article published by Nordstrom and Dackis (2011), there is discussion involving a survey given to 850 randomly selected students ranging from first to seventh grade and asked them questions involving such topics as psychological aspects, substance use, and violence in order to gather a wide range of information related to all three and to see if there was in fact a connection between these issues. After 6 years, the students were surveyed again and the results showed a connection between crime and violence in relation to substance abuse. The study concluded that drug use at an early age may cause violence, in which early involvement in violence might cause drug abuse as someone gets older.
Such studies as the one above seek to understand and research the youth in America in order to prohibit new waves of crime rising up. Young children are often recruited into gangs and then introduced to violence and substance abuse in a never-ending cycle. The youth of today are our future tomorrow and therefore need to be understood and engaged in the right activities as they grow.
For more information on the article where the study was discussed, please review the following:
Nordstrom, B. R., & Dackis, C. A. (n.d.). Drugs and crime. Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 39(4), 663–687
Bryan E. Wilson 