While there are no simple solutions to stop violence, such as the multiple murders that were committed in southwest Washington last Tuesday, we can take conrcete steps to create an environment that will make it less likely to happen.  One important factor is to find out why youth in the juvenile detention system that have repeated offenses are not properly detained to prevent recurrences of violent behavior.

A more important factor, though, is whether or not youth grow up with the love and support of both parents.  Ninety percent of youth who grow up in stable two parent families, even in violence prone neighborhoods do not get involved in any delinquent behavior.  So, how can we help more youth to grow up with this protective factor of two committed parents?  We can encourage youth to wait until marriage to have sex.  Programs that teach HIV/AIDs and pregnancy prevention through abstinence do much more than just teach about disease prevention.  They encourage the development of good character, including self control, being unselfish, and relationship skills.  We should do everything we can to encourage the formation of two parent families in Washington, DC. 

Yet, we are sending exactly the opposite message.  By not defining the goal of sexual abstinence before marriage, and by not even defining a family as a man and a woman, we send the message that sex is OK outside of marriage.  By promoting condoms instead of abstinence, we send the message that we believe youth don't have self control.  Abstinence based sexual health education is proven to work, according to a recent study.  Furthermore, it encourages the development of character and self control.  We need to do all we can to teach these character qualities to our youth.  Teaching sexual abstinence before marriage creates an environment where these kind of character traits can naturally be strengthened.