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Example research essay topic: Violence And Crime Violent Incidents - 1,774 words

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... ching becomes almost impossible, and concerns about safety and control take precedence over concerns about learning and teaching. In general, school factors that are conducive to disorder, crime, and violence include: (a) overcrowding; (b) high student / teacher ratios; (c) insufficient curricular / course relevance; combined with (d) low student academic achievement and apathy, which give rise to disruptive ness; (e) poor facilities design and portable buildings that both increase isolation and hamper internal communication; and (f) adult failure to act because cognizant leaders improperly identify potentially inflammatory situations, are reluctant to admit a problem, believe nothing will work, or simply do not know what to do (Rossman & Morley, 1996. In addition, the perception of a pervasive climate of fear of violence and crime makes it difficult to attract and retain good teachers, particularly in inner-city schools, and thus to attain educational objectives.

School discipline may suffer as teachers hesitate to confront misbehaving students because they fear for their own safety. In addition, students are sophisticated enough to recognize a teacher's limitations with respect to using discipline or force to gain compliance and retain order in his / her classroom (Rossman & Morley, 1996). Teachers are often unprepared to deal with the challenges presented by their students and the system within which they must operate. According to Walker and Gresham (1997), a major challenge consists of large schools and classrooms that make it difficult for teachers to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with students, especially at-risk students who have more intense needs for attention and involvement. In addition, overcrowded schools have more discipline and vandalism problems. A high child-to-teacher ratio makes it practically impossible for teachers to effectively monitor their students' behavior, so discipline problems and crime increase (Hellman & Beaton, 1986).

Teachers in these schools are increasingly isolated from each other, from parents, and from the neighborhoods and communities where their students (but not necessarily the teachers themselves) live. Finally, Walker and Gresham argue that many schools have become virtual fortresses of safety, steps which have been required by the escalating rates of violence. All of these conditions make it extremely difficult for schools to effectively educate their students. There are many repercussions from oversized and overcrowded schools that have a high child-to-adult ratio. From a practical perspective, any time taken to monitor and discipline is not available to educate, motivate, and teach. Further, the specific incidents of conflict and disagreement that are known to precede subsequent acts of aggression and violence go undetected in large classrooms, in the lunchroom, or on the playground.

Most intervention programs, like conflict mediation, can only mediate the most serious forms of discord. If they were to mediate all of the minor conflicts, teachers would have little time left in the day to spend on instructional activities. This creates a situation wherein serious forms of conflict and disagreement are differentially reinforced because these are the events which receive attention and mediation. The "minor" disagreements (which occur more frequently) often go undetected and are rarely mediated (Webster, 1993). Weapons and the Perceived Need for Protection Firearms are increasingly available to young people, and more and more children are bringing weapons to school because they say they fear for their safety. Several recent studies highlight the increased availability and use of firearms among youth.

For example, Harrington-Lueker (1992) estimated that 580, 000 teenagers, about 1 in 20, carry weapons into schools every year. Sheley and Wright (1993) recently surveyed male incarcerated offenders and males in 10 inner-city high schools about their use of and access to firearms, and while their findings cannot be generalized to other populations, they were somewhat sobering. Approximately 83 percent of inmates (average age 17) and 22 percent of students said that they possessed guns, and over half of inmates said they had carried guns all or most of the time in the year or two before being incarcerated. This compared to 12 percent of high school students who reported regularly carrying guns to school; nearly 1 in 4 reported doing so "now and then. " Perhaps even more disconcerting was the ease with which both incarcerated and high school males reported they could acquire a gun. Only 13 percent of inmates and 35 percent of high school males said they would have a lot of trouble getting a gun; nearly half of all respondents indicated that they could "borrow" one from family or friends, and many said they could get one "off the street" (54 percent of inmates and 37 percent of students). The most frequently endorsed reason for owning or carrying a gun was self-protection: these inner-city youth were convinced they were not safe in their neighborhoods and schools.

According to a book recently produced with support from the Carnegie Foundation, the median age of first-gun ownership in the United States is twelve-and-a-half; often the gun is a gift from a father or other male relative. In general, schools thought to promote violence have high rates of exposure to violence and victimization, a significant number of children who report not feeling safe there, the presence of bullies, a widely diverse student population, and an inability to effectively monitor and discipline children, especially for the seemingly minor conflicts which occur between children at a high rate and on a daily basis. Ensuring that basic safety needs are met is an essential first step in providing a child with a school environment conducive to learning and socialization. One "first step" approach to addressing school violence is implementation of an effective security program.

This is only one feature of a comprehensive prevention and intervention strategy, but may be a necessary initial component in some school settings. The top priority for elementary schools is to protect the safety of their students. At the higher grade levels, the emphasis shifts from protecting the students to protecting teachers and school property from the students themselves (Sabo, 1993). Unfortunately, some schools treat this "first step" as their only move forward in reducing school violence.

The overall momentum of school policy strategies for reducing violence and crime has been to "get tough. " The more popular approaches include: the installation of metal detectors at school entrances to prevent students from bringing weapons onto school grounds; enacting zero tolerance policies that require automatic suspension or removal of students for bringing weapons on school grounds; the use of police officers as security guards; an increased tendency to treat violent incidents as criminal acts to be handled by law enforcement and courts rather than by school personnel; and the creation of alternative schools or programs for youth deemed too unruly for the regular school setting. These strategies reflect an increased rigidity in school policies for dealing with violent students and violent incidents. Less punitive approaches include conflict resolution to settle disputes nonviolently, mentoring programs to provide at-risk students with supportive adult role models, new curricula to build character and develop moral reasoning (Goldstein & Glick, 1994), and partnerships between schools and social service counseling agencies. Schools that focus on increasing control have adopted a strategy similar to "hardening the target, " a term used by criminologists for the increased security by stores and banks to prevent robberies.

Hardening the target might include installing video cameras, metal detectors, bars on the windows, or alarm systems; and hiring additional security personnel. All of these hardening tactics send the message that it will be difficult to perpetrate a crime or violence at that location. Schools have been undergoing the same transition. Some argue that one reason for the recent decline in crime rates overall is that crime is harder to perpetrate, in part due to the hardening of potential targets, including a hardening of the individual as a target (e. g. , by carrying concealed weapons). While such strategies may result in a reduced number of weapons in schools and in decreased injuries and homicides in school buildings, they will do little to ameliorate the conflicts that precede violent interchanges, the situational factors that can escalate into violence, or the difficulties young people encounter in effectively resolving disputes.

The US has had numerous major acts of violence and crime in schools. What I feel is not paid enough attention to is the fact that everyday there is many acts if violence in every school. Grant it there not shootings, they dont have to be. I feel its the school and parents job to catch problems before they are escalated and acted upon. There are many signs, forms of aggression and retaliation that people in the environment would be able see and act upon before things happen. Bibliography: Fellow, R.

B. , Like, A. E. , South, S. J. , & McNulty, T. L. (1994, September). The subculture of violence and delinquency: Individual vs.

school context effects. Social Forces, 73 (1), 155 - 173. Goldstein, A. P. , Apter, S. J. , & Hartoonunian, B. (1984). School violence.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Goldstein, A. P. , & Glick, B. (1994). The pro social gang: Implementing aggression replacement training. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hanke, P.

J. (1996). Putting school crime into perspective: Self-reported school victimization's of high school seniors. Journal of Criminal Justice, 24, 207 - 225. Harrington-Lueker, D. (1992, November). Blown away by school violence.

The American School Board Journal, 50 - 53 Lips, M. W. (1992). The effect of treatment on juvenile delinquents: Results from meta-analyses. In F. Losel & T. Bliesener (Eds. ), Psychology of law (pp. 131 - 145).

NY: De Gruyter. Morrison, G. M. , Furlong, M. J. , & Morrison, R. L. (1994).

School violence and school safety: Reframing the issue for school psychologists. School Psychology Review, 23 (2), 236 - 256. Noguera, P. A. (1995, Summer).

Preventing and producing violence: A critical analysis of responses to school violence. Harvard Educational Review, 65 (2), 189 - 212. Regulus, T. A. (1995, Spring). Law, violence, and school.

Update on Law-Related Education, 19 (2), 9 - 10. Rossman, S. B. , & Morley, E. (1996, August). Introduction. Education and Urban Society, 28 (4), 395 - 411. Sabo.

S. R. (1993, January). Security by design. American School Board Journal, 180 (1), 37 - 39. Sheley, J. F. , & Wright, J.

D. (1993, December). Gun acquisition and possession in selected juvenile samples. OJJDP Research in Brief. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.

Walker, H. M. , Colvin, G. , & Ramsey, E. (1995). Anti-social behavior in school: Strategies and best practices. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Webster, D.

W. (1993). The unconvincing case for school-based conflict resolution programs for adolescents. Health Affairs, 4, 126 - 141. web web web web


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Research essay sample on Violence And Crime Violent Incidents

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