YouthFacts is dedicated to providing factual information on youth issues –- crime, violence, sex, drugs, drinking, social behaviors, education, civic engagement, attitudes, media, whatever teen terror du jour arises. Since we emphasize demonstrable fact over teen-bashing emotionalism and interest-driven propaganda, the information you find here will be dramatically different than in the major media and political forums.

Sources: CDC (2022), World Population Review (2022).

Example: The truth about school shootings no one talks about

Here are the unvarnished facts about United States school shootings leaders, interest groups, and major media on all sides refuse to engage, because they demolish everyone’s arguments:

1. Even in the worst year for school shootings – even with the Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Parkland, etc. school massacres – a student in an American primary or secondary (K-12) school is safer from being shot than a person in Germany.

2. One 64-year-old shot more people in Las Vegas in 15 minutes than are shot in all 131,000 American schools in four years.

3. A student would have to attend school every school day for 400 years to risk having any kind of shooting (homicide, accident, fatal, non-fatal) anywhere in their school, and for over 200,000 years before risking being fatally shot in or on the grounds of a school.

4. We should be far more frightened when a student leaves school, especially if they are going home, where they are many times more likely to be shot.

5. Why are schools so uniquely safe from gun violence? Because (a) they are heavily occupied by young populations singularly unlikely to shoot themselves or others, and (b) nearly all are gun-free.

6. Why do interest groups on all sides demonize schools as bullet-riddled places students should be terrified to enter? Because all sides choose exploit fears of youth to advance their agendas even at the expense of making schools more dangerous. The rampant hysteria gun-control lobbies create about schools fuels the crazed impetus by gun-rights groups to arm school personnel and officers -a reckless policy that has already caused more school shootings.

The YouthFacts study uses standard Centers for Disease Control, FBI, Education Department, and demographic data to compare the worst recent year for school shootings with gun violence risks elsewhere in American society and other nations, adjusted for the time youths and adults actually spend in those places. Its conclusions are straightforward and factual – and therefore startling and challenging to America’s grossly deceptive gun debate.

As teen crime plunges, “juvenile justice” interests resurrect crude 19th- century racism

The juvenile system’s crisis can be summed up in FBI tabulations of arrests of persons under age 18 for criminal offenses:

• 1995:  2,343,000
• 2022:     408,000

Today, far fewer youths than middle-agers in their 50s are being arrested – a mule-kick to the gut of fossilized notions of crime. Adjustments for FBI crime coverage and youth population growth enhance the astounding teenage crime plunge still more.

No one ever imagined that as America’s teenage population grew and went from heavily White to majority of Color (Latinx, Black, Asian, Native, and other Nonwhite), crime and violence would plummet as never before. In fact, experts had predicted the opposite: a generation of Clockwork-Orange-like “teenage super-predators” marauding cities and countryside alike.

Never have experts been so wrong. Now, the 25-year crash in teenage crime – down an astounding 87% in just one generation – is an existential threat to hordes of academics, officers, corporations, agencies, and advocates dependent on masses of youths shooting, robbing, and stealing.

Professor Anthony Bernier teaches youth services at the nation’s largest library school (San Jose State University’s School of Information) and is Project Director for and blogs at YouthFacts.org. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and rides a Vespa P200E and a BMW C650GT.

Mike Males is senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, San Francisco; formerly taught sociology, psychology, and epidemiology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Irvine; and has authored four books and scores of journal articles and op-eds on youth and social topics. He lives in Auburn, California, and writes weird futuristic fiction.

Mike Males’ carefully documented Substack posts confront myths about teens and social media, including the shocking fact that Centers for Disease Control surveys show access to social media actually prevents suicide attempts and serious injury among both younger and older teens by connecting them to others. See recent posts here

Wendy Schaetzel Lesko‘s experiences as a community organizer and journalist are woven into several of her books including Youth! The 26% Solution. After two decades with the Youth Activism Project, now Wendy leadsYouth Infusion which focuses on adult-run nonprofits and government agencies that engage teens as co-strategists in many organizational operations.

Milo Santamaria is an MLIS student at San Jose State University, and an aspiring children’s librarian. They have been volunteering with children and youth organizations for most of their life and earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology at UC Santa Cruz.  Milo lives in Southern California and has two pet guinea pigs named Phoebe and Cannoli.

Social media is a lifeline for mental health, not a curse, according to CDC’s own data Being online helps teens avoid suicide, self-harm and other risks. Why do media and lawmakers blame it instead? By Mike Males, April 2024

Quiet on Set: How Adults Fail To Protect Children From Abuse  After the release of the shocking documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, a 4 hour exposé on the abuse that took place on Nickelodeon sets, viewers have taken to the internet criticizing parents and other adults on set for failing to protect children from abuse. By Milo Santamaria, March 2024