Impact Of Television Violence In Relation To Juvenile Delinquency

When children are taught how to tie their shoes, it is because of how

their parents showed them. When children are taught how to do math problems it

is because how their teachers show them. With all of the role models how does

television affect our children?

Many adults feel that because they watched television when they were

young and they have not been negatively affected then their children should not

be affected as well. What we must first realize is that television today is

different than television of the past, violence is more prevalent in todays

programming unlike the true family programming of the past.

EFFECTS OF TELEVISION - THE BEGINNING

Questions about the effects of television violence have been around

since the beginning of television. The first mention of a concern about

television's effects upon our children can be found in many Congressional

hearings as early as the 1950s. For example, the United States Senate Committee

on Juvenile Delinquency held a series of hearings during 1954-55 on the impact

of television programs on juvenile crime. These hearings were only the beginning

of continuing congressional investigations by this committee and others from the

1950s to the present.

In addition to the congressional hearings begun in the 1950s, there are

many reports that have been written which include: National Commission on the

Causes and Prevention of Violence (Baker & Ball, 1969); Surgeon General's

Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior (1972); the

report on children and television drama by the Group for the Advancement of

Psychiatry (1982); National Institute of Mental Health, Television and Behavior

Report (NIMH, 1982; Pearl, Bouthilet, & Lazar, 1982); National Research Council

(1993), violence report; and reports from the American Psychological

Association's "Task Force on Television and Society" (Huston, et al., 1992) and

"Commission on Violence and Youth" (American Psychological Association, 1992;

Donnerstein, Slaby, & Eron, 1992). All of these reports agree with each other

about the harmful effects of television violence in relation to the behavior of

children, youth, and adults who view violent programming.

The only thing that we know about the effects of exposure to violence

and the relationship towards juvenile delinquency we gather from correlational,

experimental and field studies that demonstrate the effects of this viewing on

the attitudes and behavior of children and adults.

Children begin watching television at a very early age, sometimes as

early as six months, and are intense viewers by the time that they are two or

three years old. In most cases the amount of televised viewing becomes greater

with age and then tapers off during adolescence. ). The violence that is viewed