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School Crime: K-12
Our nation's schools, once a protected haven for learning and growth, are no longer safe for teachers or students in many of our nation's communities. From overt violent acts, such as homicide and assaults, to concealed crimes, such as child sexual abuse, violence in schools affects everyone-teachers, parents, children, and the whole community. Victims of violent crime in the school, like victims elsewhere, may suffer physical ailments, withdrawal from peer relations, and display indifference to learning. They also may be more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, which contributes to lack of learning, growth, and development, and hinders the effective education of children. Today, the problems in our schools are firearms, weapons, substance abuse and gangs. Many people equate school violence with large urban areas: however, violence has invaded suburban and rural schools as well. Not only public schools, but private schools are involved. Guns in schools have increased to the point that approximately one in four major school districts now use metal detectors to reduce the number of weapons brought into schools by students (Wheeler & Baron, 1993). The juvenile offenders who are arrested for weapons violations are sometimes fellow students, and other times non-student peers, who threaten and attack students, administrators, and teachers. According to a 1995 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one-fourth of students nationwide had carried a gun to school (Hamburg, 1998). In 1997, 4,205 children and teens died as a result of gunfire - one every two hours, nearly 12 every day; of these, 2,562 children and teens were murdered by gunfire (Ward, 1999). Gun violence among juveniles also causes countless injuries and disabilities. Research by the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions shows that the average cost of treating a child wounded by gunfire is more than $14,000- enough to pay for a year of college (National Crime Prevention Council, 1995). The Crime Control Act of 1990 was passed by Congress in an effort to regain control of schools in the United States. The Act prohibits the possession or discharge of a firearm on or within 1,000 feet of private, parochial, or public school grounds. Violators can receive up to five years imprisonment, a fine of not more than $250,000, or both. As of 1996, fifteen states-California, Florida, Connecticut, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, Virginia, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Texas-have passed laws making adults criminally liable for shootings committed by children who have access to the weapons. A maximum of three years in prison can result for a fatal shooting that occurs in this type of situation. The law in Florida was passed after a 1998 survey-conducted by the Florida School Boards Association and the Association of School Administrators-on the use of guns in schools found that nearly 93 percent of the weapons brought to school came from the homes of students or from homes of friends or relatives (Wheeler & Baron, 1994). In 1995 and 1997, almost one-third of all students in grades 9 through 12 (32 percent) reported that someone had offered, sold, or given them an illegal drug on school property (Kaufman et al., 2000). While illegal consumption or sale of drugs and alcohol among school children may not, in itself, be violent, such behavior often leads to violent acts. A study shows that 37 percent of students surveyed identified gang presence in their schools. The same study found a strong link between any type of student victimization and gang presence. (Howell, 2000). Organized youth gangs are not limited to large, inner-city areas as is commonly believed, and membership crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. According to a survey conducted by the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education, 13.8 percent of American high school students joined a gang during the 1993-1994 school year (Manning, 1994). With these younger gang members attending school, schools themselves have become prime recruiting grounds. Gang members stake out their turfs in their territory, including the neighborhood school grounds (Wheeler & Baron, 1993). Sexual crimes against children cause extreme victimization-both immediately and often well into adulthood. The principle reason reported for revocation of teacher certificates is sexual misconduct (Whiteby, 1992). Such crimes are commonly called "concealed crimes" since they often go unreported because child victims are frequently silenced by their perpetrators with either threats or intimidation. Child sexual assault victims lose trust in adults and authority figures, suffer physical effects, and often experience extreme emotional trauma. The possible resulting anti-social behavior can lead to greater social problems, such as alienation and estrangement. Because child sexual exploitation is so easily concealed, there is no absolute mechanism to gauge the extent of this problem. However, 12 states reported that in 1992, about 51 percent of all female rape victims were juveniles and based on these and other relevant data, the Bureau of Justice Statistics conservatively estimates that nationwide about 17,000 girls under age 12 were raped in 1992 (Langan & Harlow, 1994). Acquaintance or date rape is another sexual crime perpetrated against school children-both females and males, but more often females. Acquaintance rape is committed by someone the child knows well or with whom she or he is acquainted. The perpetrators at times resort to violence and usually claim that their victims are consenting partners to their sexual advances. More often, the perpetrators are aware of their victims' objections, yet continue their attack. At that point, what may have been an aggressive sexual advance becomes a violent act of rape. Victims often blame themselves or are blamed by others for the rape. Sexual assault victims may suffer from rape-related Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as withdrawal from social activities, distrust of peers, and physical injuries. Crimes committed against persons because of their ethnic, cultural, religious, or socio-economic background, or sexual orientation are on the rise in American society. In schools, this can mean discriminatory practices by educators and fellow students, malicious graffiti on walls or lockers, and interpersonal confrontations. Each of these can lead to violence, and all are detrimental to a supportive educational environment. For some intimate relationships between young persons, violence plays a personal and painful role. In studies of adolescent violence, researchers are finding that physical abuse among dating teens seems to be a rising trend. A Study over 1,000 high school students found that 45 percent of females, and 43 percent of males, reported being the victim of violence from dating partners at least once (O’Keefe, 1998). In one ten-month period, courts in Massachusetts issued 757 restraining orders against teens engaged in threatening, stalking, abuse, or outright assault of their young partners (Locy, 1994). The trend in dating violence was so notable in Washington, D.C., that it impelled the Superior Court to implement a separate domestic violence treatment program for teenagers, as they were seeing more and more batterers between the ages of 13 and 18. Some states have recognized the problem enough to make the topic of dating violence prevention a mandatory part of the public school curriculum (Shen, 1993). The victims of teenage dating violence-usually female, but not exclusively-may suffer from what has been identified in domestic violence research as "Battered Women's Syndrome", causing them to return to or stay in harmful relationships as a result of learned helplessness. They may also suffer from other effects associated with violent victimizations. Domestic violence occurs in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and victimizes both females and males. School officials should be aware of the potential for violent relationships between students that may result from learned behavior from the students' home environments. The number of juveniles murdered peaked in 1993 at 2,900, about 4 murders for every 100,000 person under age 18 living in the U.S. By 1997, this figure had dropped to 2,100, or about 3 murders per 100,000 juveniles (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). Arrests of juveniles for murder increased by 85 percent between 1987 and 1991 (National Crime Prevention Council, 1995), and multiple-offender homicides involving juvenile offenders have more than doubled since the mid-1980's. When juveniles commit homicide, 64 percent of their victims are friends, family, or acquaintances (Snyder, Sickmund, & Poe-Yamagata, 1997). Assistance for Juvenile Victims: Juveniles who are victimized, or who repeatedly witness violence, and do not receive immediate support in understanding it are more at risk of using violence as a means of dealing with their own conflicts. They also show traumatic stress symptoms that impair their capacity to succeed in school, to develop healthy relationships, and to become productive adults. Psychological health services and victim assistance programs can help young crime victims and witnesses of violence deal with the trauma, thus stopping the cycle of violence and preventing academic and emotional problems that victims and witnesses sometimes experience while trying to cope with trauma. A group of psychologists, social workers, community recreation workers, and specially-trained police officers in Washington, D.C., formed the Youth Trauma Team, which patrols the city at all hours. The team appears at the scene of a violent incident as quickly as possible to help children cope with what they have experience and witnessed. The work of the team is helped by the Howard University Violence Prevention Project, which offers an after-school middle school program, a preschool program, and a summer camp that provide social support, tutoring, esteem-building, and cultural enrichment for children who have been exposed to serious violence (National Crime Prevention Council, 1995). What can be done to provide a safer school environment? In the National School Safety Center (NCSSC) resource paper, School Crisis Prevention and Response, it is noted that courts have held that schools are expected to provide a physical environment conducive to the purposes of an educational institution, although a school may not be expected to ensure nor guarantee the safety of its students (Wheeler & Baron, 1993). The paper goes on to state that the right to safe schools includes the right of students and staff to: Protection against foreseeable criminal activities;
The National School Safety Center recommends that a security plan be prepared and that the following general security measures be taken to lessen the chances of school violence:
Efforts such as these require the support of parents, teachers, administrators, social workers, criminal justice professionals, and community leaders working together. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2001). Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1999: Statistical Tables, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2000). Crime in the United States, 1999. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Hamburg, B., Elliott, D.S., Williams, K.R. (1998). Violence in American Schools: A New Perspective, Youth Violence (pp.31-54). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Howell, James C. & Lynch, James P. J.(2000). Youth Gangs in Schools. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. Kaufman, Phillip, et al.(2000). Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education and Justice. Langan, Patrick & Harlow, Caroline (1994). Child Rape Victims, 1992. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Locy, Toni. (1994, April 14). "Dates, families driven to court for protection from violent youths." Boston Globe. Manning, Anita. (1994, October 21). "Trouble follows armed students: Drug abuse, violence more likely." USA Today. National Crime Prevention Council. (1995). How Communities Can Bring Up Youth Free From Fear and Violence. Washington, DC: Author. O’Keefe, M. & Trester, L. (1998). “Victims of Dating Violence Among High School Students.” Violence Against Women, 4(2): 195-223. Sheley, Joseph, McGee, Sina, Wright, James (1995). Weapon-Related Victimization in Selected Inner-City High School Samples. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. Shen, Fern. (1993, July 18). "Welts betray a dark side of teen dating." Washington Post. Sickmund, Melissa, Snyder, Howard, Poe-Yamagata, Eileen (1997) Update on Violence: Statistics Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Snyder, Howard & Sickmund, Melissa (1999). Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Ward, Jill. (1999). Children and Guns. Washington, DC: Children’s Defense Fund. Wheeler, Eugene & Baron, Anthony (1993). Violence in Our Schools, Hospitals, and Public Places: A Prevention and Management Guide. Ventura, CA: Pathfinder Publishing. Whiteby, Elaine. (1992). "Nightmare in Our Classrooms." Ladies Home Journal, CIX(10): 74-83. Lockwood, Daniel. (1997) Violence Among Middle School and High School Students: Analysis and Implications for Prevention. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. Mendel, Richard. (1995). Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look at youth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum. National Organization for Victim Assistance. (1996) Victim Assistance in the Juvenile Justice System: A Resource Manual. Washington, DC: Author. National Center for Victims of Crime. (1995). “Child Victims and the Law.” INFOLINK Bulletin. Arlington, VA. National Center for Victims of Crime. (1996). “Gangs in America.” INFOLINK Bulletin. Arlington VA. National Center for Victims of Crime, (1995). “Trauma of Victimization.” INFOLINK Bulletin. Arlington, VA. National Center for Vicitms of Crime (1996). “Violence Involving Youth.” INFOLINK Bulletin. Arlington, VA. Tolan, Patrick and Nancy Guerra. (1994). What Works in Reducing Adolescent Violence. Boulder, CO: The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Wilson-Brewer, Renee, Stu Cohen, Lydia O’Donnell and Irene Goodman. (1991). Violence Prevention for Young Adolescents: A Survey of the State of the Art. Washington, DC: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. For additional information, please contact: Center of Prevent Handgun Violence D.A.R.E. America Education Development Center National Crime Prevention Council National school Safety Center Youth Crime Watch of America National Council on Crime & Delinquency Your state Department of Education, state Attorney General, county/city prosecutor, or county/city law enforcement: Check in the Blue pages of your local phone book under the appropriate section heading of either “Local Governments,” County Governments,” or “State Government.” All rights reserved. Copyright © 2001 by the National Center for Victims of Crime. This document may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or by any other means, without the express written permission of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
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