The Controversy Of Graham Gained National Fame After A...

Toya Graham gained national fame after a video surfaced of her hitting and yelling at her sixteen-year-old son who was partaking in the Baltimore protest-turned-riots that arose after Freddie Gray died from a broken spinal cord that may have resulted while in police custody (Levs et al.). Protests began after Gray’s death by people who felt that this situation was one of many that indicated widespread police brutality. When Graham saw her son holding a brick presumably to then throw at police along with other rioters, she became very upset and ran after him, hitting him and yelling for him to â€Å"go home†(Levs et al.). Graham, who has generally been lauded for her seemingly stringent and involved approach to parenting, says, I m a†¦show more content†¦Today, homicide is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 24; when discussing youth violence the range is extended beyond 18 and in to the mid twenties (CDC). In addition to murder, non-fatal injuries are another large part of the picture of youth violence. In 2007, 668,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 14 were treated for violence related injuries at hospital emergency rooms (CDC). In 2007, a large representative sample of the country’s high school students were surveyed; 35.5% of students surveyed answered ‘yes’ when asked if â€Å"they had been in a physical fight in the previous twelve months†, and 4.2% of students surveyed answered ‘yes’ when asked if they had been â€Å"in a physical fight one or more times in the previous twelve months that resulted i n injuries that had to be treated by a doctor or nurse (CDC). As this survey was conducted with a representative sample, it helps to give one a good picture of the aggregate youth violence problem in the United States of America. Tonya Graham’s worry that her son would become ‘another Freddie Gray’ is one echoed by others, but not evenly among different groups. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay developed Social Disorganization Theory in Chicago in 1942 (Seepersad). In the 1960’s and 1970’s Social Disorganization Theory was seen as less relevant by many criminologists, but this soon changed in the 1980’s when the theory was expanded (Seepersad). More recent research