ouths between the ages of 10 and 24 is lower in Washington State than nationwide, as 4 per 100,000 compared to the national average 8 per 100,000 (State 1). However, high levels of violence continue to be the norm with experts citing "inadequate parenting, absent fathers, failed institutions, disengaged neighbors, peer pressure, and the stunning availability of cheap, illegal guns" as reasons for the continued crime wave (Burgess 1). A lack of coordinated collaboration among these different groups often compounds the issue, making intervention or prevention ineffective.
One of the biggest weaknesses with existing or proposed youth violence intervention and prevention strategies is a lack of approaches that rely on a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach. As the NCJRS maintains: "Because of the multiple factors that contribute to the development of violent attitudes and behaviors, there is not one approach or one group that can effectively prevent violence" (Youth 1). For this reason, officials, communities, school leaders, parents and others have been working together to form collaborative and multidiscipl
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