Violence is prevalent everywhere
Violence is not limited to one race, one neighborhood, one political party, one city, or one region of America.
It exists in large cities, small towns, suburbs, rural communities, schools, workplaces, homes, public spaces, and places many people once considered insulated from serious conflict.
Violence is prevalent everywhere—even in Idaho.
Idaho may be known for mountains, open spaces, agriculture, outdoor recreation, and close-knit communities. However, beautiful surroundings do not make a community immune from domestic violence, sexual assault, youth conflict, firearm injuries, suicide, hate crimes, substance-related violence, or other forms of harm.
The Idaho State Police recently released its 2025 Crime in Idaho Report, compiling information submitted by law-enforcement agencies throughout the state. The report examines crimes against people, property and society, as well as arrests, hate crimes, assaults against law-enforcement officers, and crime patterns across individual jurisdictions.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare also maintains a Violent Death Reporting System because violence is not only a criminal-justice issue—it is a public-health issue. The system collects information about violent deaths so communities can develop targeted, evidence-informed prevention strategies.
In 2024, Idaho recorded 331 firearm deaths, representing an age-adjusted firearm mortality rate of 15.9 deaths per 100,000 residents. That number includes more than crime statistics alone can explain. It represents families, children, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, survivors, and communities forever changed by loss.
Idaho also continues to confront a serious suicide crisis. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reports that the state had the fourth-highest suicide rate in the nation in 2023.
These realities should challenge the belief that violence belongs only to certain communities.
We Must Stop Stereotyping Violence
Too often, violence is portrayed as something that happens primarily in Black neighborhoods, impoverished communities, or major metropolitan areas.
When violence occurs in communities of color, people may blame the culture, the parents, the neighborhood, or the young people themselves.
When similar violence occurs in rural, suburban, or predominantly white communities, the public conversation often changes. People begin discussing isolation, mental health, family stress, economic hardship, substance use, trauma, access to firearms, or the need for additional services.
Every community deserves that deeper level of understanding.
We should not excuse harmful conduct, but we must examine the conditions surrounding it. Violence is rarely created by one single factor. It can grow from unresolved trauma, hopelessness, neglect, family instability, social isolation, bullying, untreated behavioral-health needs, poverty, substance misuse, easy access to weapons, or a lack of trusted adults and constructive opportunities.
The question cannot only be:
“What is wrong with these young people?”
We must also ask:
“What happened to them?”
“What resources were missing?”
“Who was present before the crisis?”
“What positive choices and opportunities were available?”
Prevention Must Begin Before an Emergency
Communities cannot arrest their way out of every problem.
Law enforcement has an essential public-safety role, especially when immediate danger is present. However, police officers are often called after relationships have deteriorated, warning signs have been missed, and a conflict has already escalated.
Real prevention begins much earlier.
It begins with strong families, caring adults, responsible schools, culturally responsive mentors, neighborhood organizations, recreation professionals, behavioral-health providers, faith communities, youth workers, credible messengers, and law-enforcement agencies willing to collaborate.
Young people need safe places to gather, trusted adults to speak with, positive recreational experiences, leadership opportunities, employment pathways, and meaningful ways to contribute to their communities.
They also need access to nature.
Outdoor recreation can create opportunities for movement, reflection, relationship building, emotional regulation, leadership, and healing. A hike, camping experience, conservation project, recreation program, or outdoor workforce opportunity will not solve every problem. However, these experiences can become part of a broader prevention system that helps young people feel connected, capable, supported, and hopeful.
Idaho Has an Opportunity to Lead
Idaho is experiencing population growth and increasing diversity. With that growth comes an opportunity to build stronger connections among longtime residents, new families, underserved communities, tribal communities, rural residents, young people, educators, law enforcement, outdoor organizations, and workforce-development partners.
Communities should invest in strategies that:
- Engage young people before they become involved in violence.
- Prepare recreation and youth-development professionals to identify trauma and conflict.
- Connect youth with careers, internships, apprenticeships, and environmental education.
- Expand behavioral-health and family-support services.
- Promote responsible firearm storage and community safety.
- Develop partnerships among law enforcement, schools, parks, recreation departments, and community organizations.
- Create culturally responsive outdoor and nature-based healing opportunities.
- Give youth a meaningful voice in designing the programs intended to serve them.
Violence prevention should not be something a community begins discussing only after a shooting, assault, suicide, or public tragedy.
Prevention must become part of how communities plan, budget, educate, recreate, hire, mentor, and care for one another.
Violence Has No Zip Code
No community should look at another community’s tragedy and say, “That could never happen here.”
It can happen here.
It can happen there.
It can happen anywhere people feel disconnected, traumatized, desperate, angry, ignored, or without hope.
That is not a reason to live in fear. It is a reason to act with greater purpose.
Our responsibility is to create communities where children and families are surrounded by opportunity before they are surrounded by crisis.
Violence may be prevalent everywhere, but so are courage, compassion, faith, creativity, leadership, and the capacity to heal.
Let us stop assigning violence to a particular race, city, or neighborhood.
Let us recognize it as a shared human and public-health challenge—and build solutions together.
All people. All nations. All races. We are all human beings sharing the same communities, lands, and responsibility for one another.
— Reco Bembry, Founder and Executive Director, Outdoor Equity Coalition, StoneBCS, LLC
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