School-Based Prevention Strategies

To begin making schools a safer environment, prevention measures should focus on educating children and parents about the

2. I believe early intervention programs in schools would be effective, as they help children form social bonds with their peers, thus integrating them into the elementary school institution. Students spend most of their lives in school, developing a strong attachment to the institution and their peers would help strengthen their conventional beliefs, as school is a conventional institution. As one’s conventional beliefs are strengthened, the possibility of deviance is greatly reduced due to the influence of taught morals and strong social bonds. Integrating one into a conventional institution such as a school would prove to be very effective, based on social bond theory.

Universal school-based violence prevention programs represent an important means of reducing violent and aggressive behavior as found by Hahn et al (2007) in their study about the United States. The findings by Durlak et al (2011) from a meta-analysis of school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs involving pupils from kindergarten through high school, have also added to the growing empirical evidence regarding the positive impact of SEL programs on improved social and emotional skills, attitudes, and behavior.

It is guided by six principles. These include strengthening the family in its primary responsibilities to instill moral values and provide support and guidance to children, supporting core social institutions, such as schools, churches, and community organizations, to help develop capable, mature, and responsible minors, promoting crime prevention as the most cost-effective approach to reducing juvenile lawlessness, intervening immediately and effectively when delinquent behavior first emerges to prevent it from becoming worse, establishing a system of graduated sanctions that holds each juvenile offender accountable, protects public safety, and provides programs and services that meet treatment needs, and identifying and controlling the small percentage of serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders who commit the majority of felony

With millions of dollars being spent on measures to fight weapons and drugs in schools, little reason for optimism exists due to the track record of these methods and programs. Drugs and problems still continue to be a serious problem for our youth. For example, despite spending more than 20 million dollars on the installation of metal detectors at public schools in New York City, weapons continue to be a serious problem. In order for us to have safe schools, we need to bridge the gap between

There is a range of prevention and intervention strategies that schools can out in place to promote and maintain student engagement in the mainstream school setting where possible. The strategies are outlined in depth in the Student Engagement Policy Guidelines and they include some of the following:

Juvenile delinquency is very prevalent especially among adolescents because studies have shown that during the time of adolescence that is when delinquency tends to increase and once adolescence has passed at about 17 years of age then it tends to decrease (Adolescent Delinquency, 2002). There are many factors that can contribute to the increase of delinquency during adolescence, some of the factors can be personality, mental disorders, genetics, economic status, environment, family, and culture among others, also to understand better the causes of juvenile delinquency the social control theory is the best theory to explain juvenile delinquency as a whole (Adolescent Delinquency, 2002).

By using this particular analysis method, the authors were able to demonstrate the importance of situational, time-varying factors as a means to explain delinquent behaviors. The results of the study, according to Gottfredson and Soule (2005) revealed that 7.8% reported drug use, 7.4% reported property crime, and 21.6% reported any crimes against persons. I found the rates a bit high for crimes against persons but this appears to be due in part to the fact that the threat to hit another student was included here. The study revealed that drug use and property crimes occurred more frequently on the weekends than any other time. Crimes against a person often occurred during and after school. How could this be? When broken down further, youth are confined to smaller spaces during school hours which often leads to additional peer pressures to fight. Property crimes were elevated prior to school, as well.

The utilization of evidence based programs have proven to have positive outcomes for youth such as; reduced anxieties, and depression, academic success, support systems and skills for employment. Characteristically, juvenile delinquency follows a route comparable to that of usual adolescent development. Delinquent behavior is a path followed and not just something that children randomly engage in and therefore, through the understanding of the developmental paths of at-risk youth, researchers believe that early interventions can help to increase positive outcomes (Youth.Gov, 2017).

During the past decade, school safety has been at the forefront of many school districts safety polices and plans. With recent high profile school shootings, the question school districts continue to ask is how do we keep our schools safe? Administrators face heavy scrutiny when weighing approaches to school safety and student discipline. Likewise, school employees have the right to work in safe environments devoid of life-threatening behaviors (Fenning and Bohanon, 2006; Skiba and Rausch, 2006). America’s founding fathers understood the importance of a public school education. They believed educating its citizens would allow them the opportunity to learn new skills while becoming successful and productive people in society. However, our founding fathers did not predict the severe behavior changes our schools face in educating disruptive and dangerous students. America’s school districts are charged with providing solutions for disruptive and dangerous students (Fenning and Bohanon, 2006; Skiba and Rausch, 2006). School officials must address these issues with research-based interventions and collaborative resources that provide a safe learning environment for all stakeholders (Elliott and Mihalic, 2004; Schoenwald and Hoagwood, 2001). Boards of education continue to support school efforts to rethink best practices for disciplinary alternative middle schools (DAMS). Many school districts focus on research-based interventions and resources that manage aggression and

The effectiveness of any response to a crisis is strongly linked to the extent and appropriateness of the planning and preparation process. The Substance Abuse Unit (SAU) School Safety and School Committee compiled a Needs Assessment Survey that is structured to address a variety of threats that might affect the school community. The purpose of

Anda de dan Diane. (1999), The Evaluation of a Skill-Based Violence Prevention Program for High School Adolescents. Social Work in Education, v21 n3 p137- 49

Deviance among adolescents in our society has many different causes and multiple theories throughout the history of criminal justice have been developed to attempt to explain, prevent and reduce incidents of status offenses and juvenile delinquency. There are theories varying from individual, to social and environmental. All of these theories have their merits and contribute in one way or another to the advancement of the understanding of juvenile delinquency and the treatment and prevention of delinquency within our society. Those that have proven to be successful we have applied in our justice system while those that are proven over time to be ineffective or defective we have discarded. There is no single theory that applies to all delinquent behavior in all situations. It is best to determine what theory may work best in each specific case based on the individual and the specific situation. Dodge’s information processing theory of social problem solving (Crick and Dodge 1994) was developed by Kenneth Dodge in an attempt to explain the interaction between the child’s cognitive development and their social environment. This theory combines elements of both the individual and the social environment and examines how these two variables interact with each other to present a model for juvenile delinquency. During my investigation of this topic I discovered that an adapted model of Dodge’s theory existed that seemed to be more encompassing of the causes of juvenile delinquency,

The social environment of teens holds an enormous influence on how the teens act and behave. Teens are easily influenced by their surroundings and they look to others for guidance. Their behavior results from that of the parent and peer influences. Parents play a particularly influential role in their child’s life and it is up to them to make sure that they are leading their sons or daughters in the right directions. A teen’s peers also play a large role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not around. A teen’s social environment, consisting of family and peers, plays a vital role in their life, therefore becoming the ultimate cause of juvenile delinquency.

By installing more preventative measures such as after school sports groups or activities, streetlights and more police patrol, communities can significantly reduce the crime rate. According to Denise Gottfredson of “Prevention Science” children who are unsupervised from the time they get out of school until the time their parents come home from work, have a higher risk of committing a crime (Denise Gottfredson). In order to prevent the large gap of supervision after school, children should attend or join after school sports groups or activities. After school activities or sports allows children to release any anger they may have; by releasing their emotions the children are less likely to have aggressive behavior towards their community.