Two words: Youth violence. It’s everywhere! You can’t escape it. Everywhere you look there is a crime occurring people under the age of 18 are in juvenile detention because they make preposterous decisions. Youth violence can ruin your life if you join any gang, commit murder, rob a bank, etc. Clearly, minors are making the wrong decisions by taking part in this. Once you do anything violent related it would be extremely hard to get out.


To begin with, I would like to say a few words about an incident that happened on May 26, 2000. This is an incident that my family would never forget. My dad’s best friend, Barry Grunow was shot and killed one day while he taught Language Arts at a Palm Beach County classroom. A 13 year old, Nathanial Brazil was sent home early that day and came back to school with a gun, while the school was on lockdown. He came up to Barry’s classroom door to talk to his girlfriend. Barry said no and Nathanial shot him. Barry died in his Language Arts classroom at Lake Worth Middle School. He never wanted to kill him, but still, he pulled the trigger. He serves up to 28 years in prison. Nathanial said in an interview that he is very sorry about what took place that day. However, if he never brought a gun to school, none of this would have happened, and I would be able to see him today. That is how violence has affected my life.


There are abundant amounts of reasons on how we can stop youth violence from occurring. Parents need to talk to their kids about youth violence. The majority of teenagers in gangs rarely talk to their parents. If they did, we probably wouldn’t have so many teens in gangs. In addition, the environment that teenagers live in also results in their actions. For example, if you live in a neighborhood where there are gun shots fired every week, then that person might be influenced, and commit crimes now or later on in life.


This is also a reason why we have guidance counselors. If they need someone to talk to there’s always someone there and hopefully it will prevent them from committing a felony or anything worse than that. The media plays a big role also, teens watch violent shows on television and play shooting video games .The parents aren’t monitoring what they are doing with electronic devices. Hopefully, they would realize it and hopefully reconsider what they do before they do it.


Furthermore, I can prevent youth violence by talking to elementary kids and help them fully understand what’s right and wrong, and how youth violence affects people’s lives. By the time they reach 16, they will know not to commit felonies and do the right thing. Kids need to learn this now so later on life they will make the right choices. It is evident that I help the younger kids on making the right choices because we want every child and teen to make the right choices.


To recapitulate, youth violence is on every corner of every street in every country! There are many ways to prevent youth violence, but teens keep ignoring the opportunities that can help them prevent doing absurd things later on in life. If they take the chance to listen, maybe just maybe, the number of the prisoners in juvenile detention would be much less. One day my dream that all violence will go away and there will finally be peace on Earth. This will only happen if teens do one thing and that is to… DO THE RIGHT THING!