SWYS - 1997 Violence Survey Results

Teens Respond to Questions of Violence and Personal Safety

This is the last article in a series of reports from the Teen Assessment Project, a survey of 2837 Grant County teens in grades 7 through 12 conducted last fall in cooperation with the school districts of Cassville, Iowa-Grant, Lancaster, Platteville, Potosi, River Ridge, and Southwestern.  Among the issues presented to the teens were questions about violence in their lives, their school, and their community. 

Approximately one out of ten teens indicated they have been physically abused by an adult at some time in their life.  Physical abuse was defined in the survey as being beat up, hit with an object, kicked or some other form of physical violence.   

Twenty-seven percent of all males reported being in a physical fight in the month previous to the survey.  Four percent of all males reported four or more fights in that same month. Eleven percent of males and 6% of females report being threatened with a weapon on school property in the year previous to the survey.  Six percent (males) and 3% (females) report being threatened two or more times in that same year. 

The teens were also asked about gangs in their school and community.  Five percent of males and two percent of females report being current gang members.  At the eighth grade level, 9% of males said they are current gang members.  Eight percent of all youth report there are rival gangs in their community and about half of them say the gangs were started by local gang members while the other half were reportedly started by gang members from outside their community. 

When asked how much they agree with the statement, "I feel safe walking around in my community" 92% of all students said they "agree" or "strongly agree".  Few differences were noted between genders and older students were somewhat more likely to report this feeling than younger students.  The majority of students feel their community provides resources to help them when they have problems.  Nearly three fourths of all teens (72%) feel there is an adult who is not their parent whom they would feel okay talking to and 69% said there are neighbors whom they could count on to help them.  Sixty-one percent of students indicated they can count on the police if they are having a problem. 

Unwanted sexual contact was another issue addressed by the survey.  Overall, females report more than three times as much unwanted kissing and touching by another teen as males (19% vs 6%).  Likewise females reported nearly twice as much unwanted intercourse by another teen (5% vs 3%).  By twelfth grade, eight percent of females and four percent of males report unwanted sexual intercourse by another teen.  For females, most often that contact was from a friend who was not their "boyfriend" or "girlfriend".  For males the unwanted contact was most often from a "girlfriend or boyfriend". 

Unwanted sexual contact from an adult was identified by five percent of all teens, again with three times as many females reporting this contact as males (6% vs 2%) for unwanted kissing/touching.  Unwanted sexual intercourse from an adult was identified by similar numbers of males and females at all grade levels.  Of the teens who report being victims of unwanted sexual contact, 27% of females and 26% of males report the abuse started at age 10 or younger.  Teens are nearly three times as likely to tell a friend about being a victim of sexual abuse as they are to tell a parent and males are much more likely to tell no one (45%) 

Teens were asked about sexual harassment form another student at school and then about sexual harassment from an adult at school.   Sexual harassment was defined in the survey as unwanted sexual attention such as sexual comments, jokes, graffiti, touching, blocking or cornering.  Forty-three percent of all females and 29% of all males report being sexually harassed by another student at school in the past year with eight to nine percent of students saying this happened "often".  When the source of the harassment was from an adult at school, males were more likely (15% vs 12%) to say they had experienced this.  At every grade level except ninth, more males than females reported harassment from an adult at school. 

It is clear that our students are faced with violence and personal safety issues in a variety of forms in their lives.  If they do not personally experience violence they are likely to experience it indirectly through their peers.  We see over and over in these data that peers are most often the source of support sought by other teens with problems.  One of the questions for parents, teachers, administrators and others is whether we have adequately prepared students to deal with the kinds of situations their peers may put them in.  We might also ask whether we have adequately opened the doors for students to identify willing adults to fill those roles. 

Many school districts have peer mentoring programs which train students in listening skills and other helping behaviors.  For more information about the programs in your school, contact your school counselor.  Copies of the Grant County SWYS Report are available from the Extension Office at a cost of $4.00 per report.  For information about program models and ideas for youth development, contact Tom Schmitz, 4-H/Youth Agent in Grant County at 723-2125.

Return to 1997 Survey Results

Tom Schmitz, Grant/Lafayette County Youth Development Educator
Youth and Agriculture Center P.O. Box 31, Lancaster, WI 53813
Phone: 608-723-2125   Fax: 608:723-4315   
E-mail: thomas.schmitz@ces.uwex.edu