This chapter provides an overview of youth violence prevention and intervention and introduces the subjects described in the remaining chapters: (1) society's response to the youth violence epidemic; (2) designing and implementing effective violence prevention and control strategies; (3) prevention strategies that work; (4) obstacles to implementing effective programs and policies; (5) strategies to improve the use of violence research and evaluation; (6) political and economic issues; (7) institutional maintenance; (8) an organizing conceptual paradigm for violence research and prevention programming; (9) defining violence and identifying its forms; and (10) life course transitions and trajectories. The chapters describe the modest knowledge base for designing and implementing violence prevention and intervention programs and the need for continued basic research and evaluation. They also argue for a comprehensive national violence prevention and intervention initiative, which will require a new paradigm for integrating research findings into a more systematic and cumulative body of knowledge. Notes, table, figure, references