Youth Violence Over the past decade, criminal and violent acts committed by juveniles have increased dramatically. A national crisis is engulfing this country. Over half of the people arrested for murder in the United States in 1991 were under age 25 (Wilson & Howell, 1993). The Children’s Defense fund estimates that an American child is arrested for a violent crime every five minutes and is killed by guns every 2 hours (Edelman, 1995). Over the past 10 years, our youth have appeared to commit more violent acts and to commit them at younger ages. Because this is a major problem in society, many programs, strategies, and policies have been implemented in an attempt to reduce youth violence. It