Youth, At-Risk

Over the last decade of the twentieth century, the media and scholarly literature on at-risk youth confirm that youth at both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are labeled at-risk in our society in one way or another. Depending on the yardstick, however, some at-risk behavior is more likely to be labeled criminal, thus bringing particular youth into direct contact with the youth justice system. To be sure, a rising number of middle- and upper-class youth are closing the gap in terms of risk behavior exhibited. At-risk youth as a class-neutral phenomenon was brought to national attention during the Columbine incident in 1999, when two high-school students in an affluent Denver suburb killed twelve classmates and a teacher. Nevertheless, poor, minority, at-risk youth are more likely to come into contact with either the social welfare system or the juvenile justice system. Therefore, more is known about their at-risk behavior, their treatment within the justice system, and their prospects for being repeat offenders or fully rehabilitated and absorbed into mainstream society.

At-risk youth as a distinct group of children in American society had become an elusive concept by the turn of the twenty-first century. Leading scholars in delinquency literature use the term at-risk youth without clearly defining how they measure risk. Although it is synonymous with troubled youth and disadvantaged youth, there is no clear definition of atrisk youth. What has become obvious is that youth are at risk across class, racial, and gender lines. This has led to blurred lines between at-risk and risk-free youth.