Schools and Delinquency

English Literature

Today's society has seen one of the highest rates of criminality throughout the world. The American society however, due to its level of democracy is considered to be able to deal with this situation especially after the alarm signals that were drawn as a result of the high school shootings in recent years. From this point-of-view, crime prevention is a crucial aspect the authorities in the United States have to deal with. At the same time, the possible results are also essential for the way in which the situation would evolve in the future.

According to a report of the National Center for Educational Statistics, "during the 1996-1997 school year, there were 210,160 reported violent crimes that occurred in their schools. These student-perpetrated crimes included rape, sexual battery, robbery, and physical attack/fights both with and without a weapon" (Scheckner, 2002). Therefore, it can be said that the situation in the U.S. schools is rather dramatic from the point-of-view of the statistics.

There have been identified several means through which the authorities can intervene in order to stop the spread of crime at the level of the schooling system. According to research conducted, one of the most important is the early intervention practice which appeals first and foremost to the elementary level (Scheckner, 2002). This is considered to be a key factor for preventing crime from the beginning of the schooling system. More precisely, "the longer a child is exposed to risks like violence, the more likely he or she will experience deleterious outcomes, such as avoidance, fear, retaliation, drug use and the like." (Scheckner, 2002) Another important practice is related to the precise aspects of creating a better community that starts in school. This idea was successfully implemented in Tucson, Arizona where children were engaged in a "school-based violence prevention program called Peace Builders (...) Peace Builders is a program that teaches pro-social behavior. Activities were designed to improve daily interactions among students, teachers, other school staff, and parents" (Scheckner, 2002). From this point-of-view, children were educated in a spirit of peacefulness and consideration for the community from the first days of their education.

Other programs included older students from the seventh grade who were educated "about violence in relationships" (Scheckner, 2002). This is again a crucial aspect because it has been considered that in fact students who are the most prone to act in a violent manner do so because they are not engaged in social and personal relations.

Despite the fact that there are a lot of initiatives at the level of the schools as well as at higher levels, the rate of success for these crime prevention programs depends on various factors. One of these factors is the ability to organize the different programs students are engaged in. More precisely, "limited organizational capacity is indicated by poor staff morale, a history of failed programs or other innovations in the past, and a sense of resignation about the possibilities for improving the school. Experience implies that when schools score low on the Morale scale of the Effective School Battery, improvement programs are difficult to implement" (Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 2002). From this point-of-view it is important that a certain experience concerning the capacity to implement improvement programs be held by the schools. Otherwise, the efforts being made are left without a proper positive result.

The effectiveness of an improving program is also dependent on other issues such as the school methods, the manuals, the control over the activities, as well as the actual staff which is engaged in the process. All these aspects must be taken into account when determining the framework for a particular program because they are the basic elements of the program and because they offer the immediate results in their contact with the students. this is why a crucial aspect in the improving programs is also the training of the teachers and other program leaders (Ozer, 2006). There must a connection between the teacher and the student beyond the traditional system of work. As stated by Ozer, there are several levels for implementation ranging from class/teacher level to the community level (2006); more precisely, a particular system of teaching must be set in place because preventing school crimes is a complex issue which takes into account both the school environment and the community one.

Research analyses have shown that results in these programs vary. On the one hand, several programs which included the development of a violent prevention curricula registered positive results in the sense that there was a clear reduction in the use of violence in hypothetical conflict situations, "frequency of use of violence in the past thirty days, and frequency of physical fights in the past thirty days" (Scheckner, 2002). More importantly however, the research conducted showed that the conflict resolution programs were more effective than conflict prevention in terms of reducing fights (Scheckner, 2002). This comes to show that in the first instance it is important to deal with the immediate manifestations of anger for students who are already prone to violence, before dealing with preventive action.

On the other hand, in terms of preventive action, positive results were seen in particular in cases of the use of dating violence (Scheckner, 2002). In these situations, there was a reduction in the percentage of students who use violence. More precisely, "those who were not exposed to the program did not exhibit this attitudinal change (...) Researchers concluded that the curriculum shows promise if future research is performed in order to determine whether the observed attitude change is also linked to reduction of aggressive behavior" (Scheckner, 2002). Therefore, despite the initial positive results, preventive action must be analyzed carefully in order to see whether the changes that occur are permanent.

There have been several discussions on the elements which make a successful prevention program. In this sense, there are certain aspects which are considered to be effective. In this sense, concerning the infants, "frequently home visits by nurses and other professionals" as well as "classes with weekly home visits from preschool teachers" are important for the way in which prevention action is taken (Sherman, 1997).