Poorly illuminated streets are the preferred locations for juvenile delinquency.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – The crime rate in certain cities in the United States is through the roof, and, unfortunately, there are a lot of children that fall victims to the violent behavior. But a new study revealed that fewer teenagers will die if changes are made in neighborhoods.
You would be amazed to see what a working lamppost or a crosswalk could do to a neighborhood. It wouldn’t just spruce up the place, it would reduce the crime rates, or so a Philadelphia researcher believes.
The lead researcher in the study, Alyson Culyba, an adolescent medicine instructor at Philadelphia’s children hospital believes that parks, public transportation, clean parking lots and street lighting could actively reduce the number violent street murders.
Culyaba says that there is a significant link between somebody’s mental health and the place the individual is living in. By making the neighborhoods look better, their inhabitants would act more decent.
According to her study, young people are usually murdered in poorer areas, abandonment buildings, vacant lots and places with private bushes. Usually, the crime scenes are private because the gang members don’t want an audience when committing the act.
But the researcher explained that there is no way of predicting if the changes in the landscape will diminish the alarmingly increasing rates in juvenile criminality.
The study that was published in the Pediatrics section of the JAMA magazine revealed that roughly 2000 individuals with ages between 13 and 20 were murdered in the streets in 2013.
In order to determine just how much the background influences criminals, Culyaba and her team studied the surroundings of the assassination sites where 143 teenagers were killed. She then compared them to 155 teens that were present on other streets and did not fall victims of peer violence.
The team created panoramic images of the locations of each murder in order to better study the neighborhoods. Then they matched the panoramas with similar data collected from other streets were teenagers were present at the time of the murders in order to detect possible elements that transformed one street corner into a danger zone and the other in a safe place.
According to the published results, there were significantly lower rates of murder on streets that were adequately illuminated, had don’t walk/walk signs, public transportation, parks and painted crosswalks.
On the other hand, teenagers were more likely killed in locations that were abundant in stop signs, private plantings or bushes and houses with security gratings or bars.
Culyaba believes that fewer teenagers will die if changes are made in neighborhoods. And don’t even have to be big, just a lamppost, a crosswalk and a bus stop here and there.
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