Violence Among Youth: Pathways to Prevention

Youth violence among African American young men is an important public health issue facing many urban cities. Police interactions with youth may contribute to high observed rates of violence and related injuries among African American young men. For example, in a nationally representative sample, over half of Black youth aged 18-29 years reported that they or someone they knew experienced harassment or violence at the hands of the police

Overview

The goal of the proposed research is to conduct a community needs and assets analysis to inform the wide-scale adoption and implementation of evidence-based violence prevention policies, programs, and practices in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. A primary purpose of violence prevention strategies will be to reduce violence and related injuries that occur as a result of police interactions with African American male adolescents and young adults in North Minneapolis and the East Side of St. Paul, Minnesota.

The specific aims of the study are to:

Describe perceptions of the root causes of violence and injury among African American males
Examine perceptions of police-youth violence-prevention policies, programs, and practices
Describe existing infrastructures that can be leveraged to strengthen police-youth violence-prevention efforts in North Minneapolis and the East Side of St. Paul.