two women fighting in the backyard
The setting changes - a school cafeteria, a backyard, the parking lot of a washateria - but the action is the same. A crowd of teenagers, and sometimes adults, form a circle and egg on two young women as they slap each other in the face, pull hair, roll on the ground or throw punches.
Rarely does anyone step in to break up the fight. Some onlookers are too busy videotaping the brawl, which inevitably ends up on YouTube, the wildly popular video-sharing website. There, the fight will continue as commenters leave nasty messages below the video, trash-talking the "loser."
Any teen with a cell phone who takes pictures or video can share images of fights on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, all of which have exploded with tens of millions of users in the last five years.
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The girls are more likely to express their emotions than their male counterparts, but some young women are unable to cope with that mounting emotional load and instead are resorting to violence.
Juvenile probation officer Lashea Sowell supervises a caseload of about 25 in Beaumont, mostly girls. She says a lot of the young women she deals with have more conflict inside the house than outside. They clash with parent figures or are caring for their own children.
Sowell says a lot of the young women associate themselves with gangs, though she thinks they do it more to fit in with a group - it's about "Who's badder?" she says - than to engage in violent activity.
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"A lot of the girls just feel neglected, " said Rashunda Fletcher, who is also a juvenile probation officer in Jefferson County. "They're looking for someone to love them, whether it's positive or negative. They're looking for attention."
Sometimes that attention comes from posting fight videos online. Girls see their friends' videos getting lots of hits, and they want to feel watched - feel tough - too.
But even as young women might feel empowered by that newfound fame, they risk being taunted once those videos go up. It's not unusual for commenters to mock the feuding girls' appearances, weight or fighting abilities, which could counteract any initial self-esteem boost.
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One video posted in April 2010, claiming to have been filmed at Beaumont's Ozen High School, shows two girls just after an altercation, one standing on a cafeteria table, the other being escorted away by a police officer. Commenters predict the girls will make bad parents and obscenity-laced jabs and rants fly.
Beaumont police say they have seen the videos, but there is little they can do if no one presses charges. They say if parents aren't complaining, law enforcement's hands are tied.
"We'd love for some of the parents to see these (videos) and take responsibility for it, " said Officer Carol Riley, a Beaumont Police Department spokeswoman. "So many parents have no idea what their children are doing on the Internet."
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Sowell says part of the reason troubled young women are looking for attention in the wrong places is because they aren't getting it at home. Many of the girls she supervises have young parents - age 30 or under - which causes conflict.
"Mother and daughter ... they both have the teen hairdos and clothing. They're competing at night to go to the club, " Sowell said. "So if the daughter does not have a mature role model, of course she's going to have a lot of the same (immature) behavior."
Kaimann says in Southeast Texas, many parents are working longer hours, struggling to make ends meet, which leaves less time and energy for parenting.
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Children learn how much aggression is normal by watching what's around them, Kaimann says, whether that's in video games, on television or at home. And once they decide lots of aggression is normal, they are more likely to act on it.
If parents fail to provide appropriate guidance and structure at home, schools often step in to provide it. But today's parents "tend to complain about the kids having boundaries put on them or consequences for negative behavior at school, " Kaimann said. That attitude is causing a breakdown of structure and discipline in schools, she said, which means the legal system is also forced to play the role of parent.
According to the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, the best way to keep kids who've been to juvenile detention from coming back is to identify and address problems early on.
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The agency cautions that despite a community's best efforts, the juvenile justice system is often the first "program" from which a troubled youth receives help. It recommends this U.S. Department of Education guideline: "Prevent inappropriate behavior through teaching and reinforcing appropriate behaviors."
Many community groups in Southeast Texas are stepping in to provide early intervention, though Kaimann says there is no such thing as "enough" outreach. Representatives of Family Services of Southeast Texas have visited schools in Lumberton, Port Arthur and Beaumont to educate students about bullying and domestic violence and Sowell says more individuals from the private sector are offering to help mentor and counsel the girls she supervises.
Most of the schools in the area also have alternative campuses where students are sent for a period of time if they need more structure or have out-of-control behavior.
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At Beaumont ISD's site, Pathways Learning Center, female students usually make up about 40 to 45 percent of those attending, according to Principal Michael Ryals. Right now, 83 students from grades 6 to 12 are in Pathways, though that number fluctuates throughout the year.
Ryals says only about 10 to 15 percent of the young women are at Pathways for fighting, while the rest are there for behavior like talking back. He says once students get to Pathways, where the student-to-teacher ratio is lower, students often are able to better focus on their lessons because there are fewer distractions.
"They don't need a hard boot camp, " said Ryals, who has led Pathways for more than a decade. "They need an academic system with structure."
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He says though many people think school is where the problems start, more often than not, it's the schools stepping in to solve existing problems at home.
Ryals said it's fair to expect schools to provide students with life skills and structure they might lack at home. But what is unfair is to expect under-trained teachers to know how to deal with problem students - which is costly. Getting the extra training would be cost-prohibitive, he said.
"Many of the teachers are not familiar with the problems the kids are dealing with, " he said. "We need more people that are willing to really just sit and listen to kids. To see why they are the way they are."
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Ryals said though it's not a perfect solution, Pathways often is the best way to get troubled children back on the right track. When he was calculating the return rate at Pathways a few years ago, he noticed the children who came back seemed to be less disruptive. Sometimes they acted out just so they could come back to Pathways, where Ryals says there is less bullying and fewer fights.LOS ANGELES — The cheers from the crowd of 200 turned to anxious chatter as the fighter lay motionless, stupefied by a right hook. For two minutes, he didn’t stir.
Joshua Brito, who helped organize this fight in a hastily constructed ring in a friend’s backyard, leaned in to get video to post on YouTube. Damian Gutierrez, Brito’s partner and the event’s M.C., climbed between the ropes to check on the fallen man.
The fighter’s buddies dragged him by his feet to the edge of the ring and eased him to the ground. Finally, he stood and spat water into the air, a sign
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