The speaker notes the rise in the rate of violence and vandalism in the schools and cites a poll indicating how important secondary school principals think the problem is. He lists a number of factors contributing to school crime--the breakdown of the family and family control, glamorization of violence on television and film, street crime, drug…

The purpose of this paper is to encourage persons concerned with violence and vandalism in schools to take a more critical look at school-crime statistics and reports and their data-gathering methods. It makes two points. First, writings on or about student crime and violence may be misleading because of certain errors in quantifiable data, such…

This paper is part of a symposium focusing on the Safe School Study recently completed by the National Institute of Education. The symposium attempted to delineate the critical methodological problems arising from ethnographic research in the school setting on school violence and delinquency, and to report recent findings from studies using…

This paper was presented as part of a symposium attempting to document historical trends in the extent of disruptive behavior in schools and some contemporary responses to the problem. Fragmentary evidence suggests that disobedience and resistance to authority are not new, but incidents have become more serious. Still, few students are either…

The era of massive student disorders seems finally to have ended; but in its wake, it has left profound changes which affect the relationship between the student and the law. One immediate consequence of these changes is a new expanded view of student civil rights, particularly those rights at the high school level that did not exist a decade ago.…

In response to the growing incidence of violence and vandalism in Connecticut schools, the state established the Interagency Task Force on School Security and the Citizens Advisory Council on Safe Schools to examine the problem. Two principal sources of information were developed, including a series of four regional hearings at which students,…

National Education Goal Six calls for all schools to have safe environments conducive to teaching and learning by year 2000. In 1989, the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction initiated the School Security Enhancement Program, which provides competitive grants to school districts to develop or improve school-based…

This report consists of six papers prepared for the Seventh Annual Conference on Strategies for School Security, which was held January 21-23, 1976 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The papers include "School Security--A Growing Problem," by Charles Trotter, Jr.; "School Violence and Vandalism," by Joseph Grealy; "Identifying Security Problems and Needs,"…

If the findings of recent research are any guide, the dollars that are now spent on security devices and personnel, and the educational time now lost by involving teachers and administrators in expanding security programs, would be better spent on strategies for making schools more humane places in which learning can take place. We should look for…

The extent of school violence and vandalism is staggering, according to the author. He briefly reviews the history of conflict in American education, concluding that when a new group of people comes into an institution, such as the public schools, there is bound to be conflict and tension, as when the schools were desegregated by court order. He…

Increasing school violence and vandalism, in Philadelphia and nationwide, require discussion of the likely causes and of new solutions. Crime in schools is extensive, according to the national Safe School Study. Philadelphia data show that school crime there increased from 1975 to 1980 in seven out of ten categories. The authors of the Safe School…

Studies on the problems of vandalism and violence in the schools have focused on societal changes, school behaviors, and the attitudes and behavior of the school principal in their efforts to understand the causes of such problems. This study examined recent trends in rates and costs of vandalism, and in rates of assaults by students on other…

A study of campus crime trends from 1974 to 1990 examines the relationships between campus crime and college characteristics. The research drew on merged national databases containing federal crime statistics, community demographic data, and campus characteristics. The results show that campus rates of both violent crime and property crime are…

A contemporary theory of behavior is that faulty patterns of thinking divide the criminal from the noncriminal. The causation of school violence is children choosing to be violent; and the problem of school violence is acceptance of their choice. Short-term control measures are adherence to systematic school rules, use of technology, security…

A study examined student perceptions of the school environment in a small, rural high school in southeastern North Carolina. Surveys returned by 417 students in grades 9-12 suggested that the presence of gangs and unsafe or hidden areas were not major problems. The fact that 46 percent indicated that vandalism was a problem suggests that vandalism…