One man’s solutions to juvenile terrorism; the rising violence among boys and young men -written by Grace Gawler

“Perhaps it takes a whole society to raise one violent boy,” says sustainable-masculinity advocate, Pip Cornall, who, after more than two decades working to prevent violence in the USA and Australia, is appalled by the rising youth violence in the Tweed-Byron area.

When asked if we can solve the problem of gang violence he relied, “Sure we can. Repeatedly, in workshops with gang members when we help them drop the  “tough guise,” there is a vulnerable boy with terrible self esteem hiding there. Once we identify the root causes we can design solutions—solutions of an immediate nature and the longer term preventative ones.”

After he left the Northern Rivers in 1980, Pip, a former PE teacher, ran an outdoor adventure business for 12 years which eventually took him to the USA where his adventure lifestyle continued. He was a ski instructor in winter, a raft guide in summer and in between taught peer mediation in the area schools. Eventually Pip became a interested in restorative justice programs and became a mediator in the juvenile justice systems of NSW and Oregon. He also worked with gang kids in California and with men in prison.

In 2003 Pip worked with Australian Olympic athletes to reduce sexual harassment in the teams. Inspired by the ability of boys and men to make positive changes in their lives Pip is authoring of a series of short books which empower men to develop healthy masculinities. His latest book “Kicking a Goal for Masculinity” encourages sportsmen to become good role models for boys and young men and play a role in promoting better forms of masculinity in Australia and overseas.

Pip says, “Most disturbing is the number of younger boys who are drawn to gratuitous violence and destructive gang behaviour. It is a lose/lose situation that ruins lives including the lives of the boys themselves. Sadly Byron Bay has become known throughout Australia as a dangerous place and I have already met several people who have been attacked by knives and iron bars wielded by packs of boys in the Bay.”

Pip says that in getting to the root causes of the violence it is important to name the gender responsible for the attacks. “It is largely a gender issue,” he says, “but one which our cultures unwittingly contributes to. Once we identify it as a gender issue we can make the necessary changes. Too often we name gang violence as youth crime, when, overwhelmingly, 99% of the perpetrators are male. We need to name it as that—as gender violence—as a male issue. Given that baby boys and girls are not born violent and there are societies where violence is very low, we must identify what makes our young boys prone to acts of gratuitous violence.”

Michael Flood from the ANU, says, “Historically, wars have been intensely masculine endeavours. The vast majority of the world’s soldiers are men. So are most of the prison warders, the police, and almost all the generals, admirals, bureaucrats and politicians who control the systems of collective or institutional violence. Most murderers are men. Almost all armed robbers and muggers are men. Nearly all rapists, most domestic bashers, and most people involved in street fights and riots are men.”

Pip reports, “It was hard for me to face these facts about my gender but once I recovered I decided to do what I could to help change the situation. I also realised I would have to start changing my self first because I had been subject to male programming as well.

“Thankfully, in recent years both the UN and the World Health Organisation have identified the need to address male socialising as foundational to any programs to end violence. I am glad that gender violence is being addressed. While there are many causes to gang violence, such as poverty, broken homes, media and others, girls are subjected to those influences as well, and although we are seeing a rise in girl crime boys and young men are still overwhelmingly the perpetrators.”

Queensland’s taskforce on violence is examining 5 key causal areas including the role of alcohol and drug use, family breakdown and structure, behaviour management, group violence, social violence, and education. In America the National Campaign to Stop Violence gave questionnaires to tens of thousands of children living in violence torn cities. The children listed the ten top causes of violence in the following order—media, substance abuse, gangs, unemployment, weapons, poverty, peer pressure,  broken homes, poor family environment/bad neighbourhoods, intolerance, ignorance.

Pip believes if you dig deeper you’ll see a gender issue running through all or most of the other causal factors listed above. That is why he has cause for hope.

“I find it useful to remind myself that baby boys are not born violent and then ask the question—what happened to make them this way. When I hear the stories from the mouths of gang members I begin to understand how they got to this terrible situation.”