Addressing School Violence

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, August, 2001 by Francis Q. Hoang

Prevention, Planning, and Practice

With these words, former FBI director Louis Freeh captured the essence of the challenge that communities face in addressing school violence. Recent high profile school shootings have led to an atmosphere of fear and apprehension among many communities about the safety of their schools. While statistics show that schools, in general, remain safer than their surrounding neighborhoods, every community must take steps to address school violence. In doing so, many questions may arise. Where does a community begin the process of addressing school violence? How can schools prevent or reduce school violence? How can communities plan for handling school violence when it does occur? Should law enforcement include exercises and training as a part of these preparations?

DEFINING SCHOOL VIOLENCE

To address school violence, communities first must understand what it is and who is involved. [2] The definition of school violence, an unacceptable social behavior ranging from aggression to violence that threatens or harms others, goes beyond highly publicized incidents of mass bloodshed to include acts, such as bullying, threats, and extortion. Therefore, school violence spans a broad range of antisocial behavior that law enforcement must address.

IDENTIFYING PERPETRATORS OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE

Historically, individuals who commit school violence fall into one of two groups. The first group, insiders" (e.g., students), usually can be divided into two broader categories--sociopaths (e.g., bullies who instigate fights and manipulate others) and psychopaths (e.g., socially inept loners who have the potential for great violence). [3] The second group involves visiting "outsiders," such as students from other schools or former students.

Communities must prepare for potential school violence from either of these groups. No standard profile of a school violent offender currently exists. At best, certain warning signs may indicate potential violence and specific factors may denote a greater likelihood of an individual carrying out violence.

ADDRESSING SCHOOL VIOLENCE

Primarily, communities can address school violence through three simple steps--prevention, planning, and practice. Prevention refers to taking actions to reduce or prevent school violence from occurring, planning determines what actions to take if school violence does occur, and practice entails rehearsing plans and modifying them when needed.

Prevention

Various publications provide a comprehensive overview of school violence prevention programs and offer various steps communities can take to help prevent violence in their schools. [4] First, communities should establish partnerships between schools and other public agencies. Because school violence remains a community problem, it requires collaboration from all residents, agencies, and businesses. Schools, police, business leaders, and elected officials all must cooperate to address school violence.

Next, communities should identify and measure the problem. School officials, working with law enforcement and other community agencies, should collect information that shows the size and scope of violence in their schools. This important step ensures that prevention efforts revolve around the community's specific problems.

Communities also should set goals and measurable objectives. School officials, collaborating with parents and students, should set goals (with broad results) and specific objectives (with measurable results) for their school violence prevention efforts.

Last, communities should identify appropriate research-based programs and strategies. The key to preventing and reducing school violence combines long-term strategies with short-term interventions. Community leaders and school administrators should research and examine various school violence prevention options and select techniques most appropriate for their schools. Such options fall into three broad categories. [5]

The first category involves environmental modifications and suggests that

police, trained in crime prevention through environmental design, or school security managers, who have attended specialized courses in physical security, audit or survey each school. These personnel should examine a school's physical environment and recommend modifications to prevent or reduce violence.

The second category includes options for preventing and controlling violence based on school management. For example, this may entail establishing behavior and discipline codes, the use of criminal penalties against selected students, or the placement of problem students into alternative educational institutions.

The final category, education and curriculum-based prevention techniques, could include teaching conflict resolution courses, establishing mentoring programs, developing self-esteem initiatives, or instituting community- oriented policing crime prevention efforts.

After reviewing the various options, administrators should work with the entire community to carefully implement the selected prevention measures. Some preventive techniques may require additional resources, outside approval, or long-term planning to prove successful.