Youth Venture

December 8, 2007 - 12:46pm — GreenTeensJessie

Establish a U.S. Department of Peace

Hey Everyone,
Jessie from Green Teens here! Last October I attended the 2007 National Student Peace Alliance Conference held at Brandeis University near Boston, Mass. Before the conference I thought that peace was a good idea, but I don't think I realized how critical peace is- we need it to solve our problems. The Student Peace Alliance (SPA) is a group of high school and college students that are working to establish a U.S. Department of Peace. In fact, I wish that I had posted this a bit sooner, because all last weke the SPA held a call in, where members of the house were contacted and asked to suport the H.R.808 and thanked if they already did. I know that I called Nancy Pelosi (the speaker of the house!) and each house representative from Connecticut. The call- in was a great success (http://www.callforadepartmentofpeace.org) and a lot of fun to get involved in. I would like to hear what other members of Youth Venture think about the idea of the SPA as well as Establishing a U.S. Department of peace.

Here are some Crime Statistics (a department of peace would solve problems like this both natioanlly and internationally):

• In 2001, almost 21,000 homicides and 31,000 suicides occurred; and almost 1.8 million people were assaulted, while about 323,000 harmed themselves and were treated in hospital emergency departments. (Surveillance for Fatal and Nonfatal Injuries – 2001, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Vital Statistics System)

• Worldwide, an estimated 1.6 million people lost their lives to violence in 2000. About half were suicides, one-third were homicides, and one-fifth were casualties of armed conflict. (World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization, 2002)

• In 2006, worldwide terrorist incidents increased 25 percent to 14,000, and deaths caused increased 40 percent to 20,000 persons. [Report on Terrorist Incidents, 2006 (issued April 2007), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)]

• Homicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2001. Suicide was the third leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2002. (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System – 2002, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

• In the United States, some 31,000 gangs were operating in 1996 in about 4800 cities and towns. [World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization 2002]

• Of children in sixth through tenth grade, more than 3.2 million-nearly one in six-are victims of bullying each year, while 3.7 million bully other children. (“Bullying Prevention is Crime Prevention,” Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2003)

• A significant number of School Resource Officers (SROs) reported budget cuts for school safety funding in their local school districts, inadequacies in federal school safety funding, and the need for an “Education Homeland Security Act” to fund school terrorism training, improve security and crisis planning, and support SRO programs. (2003 NASRO School Resource Officer Survey, National Association of School Resource Officers)

• A study on the cost-effectiveness of early intervention to prevent serious crime in California, showed that training for parents whose children exhibited aggressive behavior was estimated to have prevented 157 serious crimes (such as homicide, rape, arson and robbery) for every $1 million spent. In fact, training in parenting skills was estimated to be about three times as cost-effective as the so-called ‘‘three-strikes’’ law in California. [Greenwood PW et al. Diverting children from a life of crime: measuring costs and benefits. Rand, 1996.]

• Domestic Violence is the single greatest cause of injury to women. [Journal of Amer. Med. Assoc.]

• As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. (Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. “Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions.” Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000;4(2):79-84.)

• The World Health Organization declared that violence is a leading worldwide public health problem. [World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization 2002]

Face it, peace is cheaper, happier, and we can get more accomplished when we are in a peaceful state of mind! To read more statistics and how a department of peace could help these, check out http://www.studentpeacealliance.org

Peace,
Jessie