Palm Trees

Female Adolescent Violence Linked to Substance Use

Traditionally speaking, females were considered to be the fairer gender, delicate and feminine. Liberal feminists would argue differently and while women tend to be much stronger than past stereotypes, violent behavior in females is still uncommon. In fact, in October 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan conducted a joint news conference calling for a “national conversation on values to address youth violence.”

To study the occurrence of violent behavior in females, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asked youths aged 12 to 17 to report on their involvement in three types of violent behaviors during the past 12 months. These adolescents were also asked about their use of alcohol and illicit drugs during the same time period.

Data captured between 2006 and 2008 indicate that an annual average of 2.3 million adolescent females engaged in a serious fight at school or work; 1.7 million participated in a group-against-group fight; and 700,000 attacked others with the intent to seriously hurt them. When compared to previously captured data from 2002 to 2004, the rates of violent behaviors among adolescents have remained relatively stable.

By comparison, data captured on adolescent males during the same time period indicate that 25.4 percent got into a serious fight at school or work in the past year; 17.0 percent participated in a group-against-group fight; and 9.3 percent attacked others with the intent to seriously hurt them.

When demographics are measured, adolescent females aged 14 to 15 are more likely to have engaged in a violent behavior in the past year – or 28.9 percent – than those aged 12 to 13 and those aged 16 to 17. Blacks were more likely to have engaged in a violent behavior than those in all other racial/ethnic groups.

For those female adolescents who engaged in a violent behavior they were more likely than those who did not to have reported binge drinking and illicit drug use. For instance, 15.1 percent of the females who engaged in a violent behavior in the past year indicated past month binge alcohol use compared with 6.9 percent of those who did not engage in violent behavior.

At the same time, the rate of substance use increased steadily as the number of types of violent behaviors increased. For example, 6.9 percent of girls with no violent behavior indicated past month binge alcohol use compared with 12.6 percent of those with one type of violent behavior, 17.3 percent of those with two types and 27.2 percent of those with three types.

Overall, female violence is closely associated with poor school performance, alcohol and drug use, an impoverished family background and other factors that have yet to be captured by this data. One thing is clear, alcohol and drugs do play a role for this high risk group and unless prevention is a priority in education, the violence may increase.