After many years of decline in violent behavior among adolescents in several Western countries, recent official statistics indicate a possible trend change. So far, knowledge on how this change is related to co-occurring changes in leisure time activities is limited. Using two cross-sectional surveys from Oslo, Norway, this study found substantial increases in the prevalence of physical fighting from 2015 (N = 23,381; 51.6% girls) to 2018 (N = 25,287; 50.8% girls) in junior and senior high school. The rise in fighting was related to co-occurring changes in several leisure activities, including increasing time spent unsupervised by adults, rising digital media use, and rising cannabis use. The study emphasizes the importance of considering leisure time activities when addressing adolescent misbehavior.
In the aggregate data:
After a steady decline from 2007 to 2013 in police registered violent crime among adolescents under the age of 18 in Oslo, the capital of Norway, the number of violent crimes increased from 259 to 499 from 2013 to 2018, an increase
of 93% in five years.
Table 2 indicates that changes in “migration background” do not seem large enough to explain that evolution, even if that were the significant factor. And from the survey data:
In junior high school, the prevalence rates for boys increased from 31.4% in 2015 to 38.1% in 2018 and from 8.9% to 13.1% for girls…
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