preview

Violence in the School Systems Essay

Decent Essays

Violence within this country has been an ongoing problem throughout history. Due to all the media coverage of more recent violent events in school history, such as Columbine, it is of popular belief that violence in school systems is the worst it has ever been. There are many questions about what type of violence occurs most often, what gender and what ethnicity violence is most affecting in schools.

Violence can be defined by any deliberate act, serving no legitimate purpose, which causes injury or which could reasonably be expected to cause injury to another person. To be considered reportable, the conduct should be either intentional or reckless in nature. (Basic Education Circular on Safe Schools, 1996) School violence can …show more content…

The percentage of males who answered yes to those questions was double of what the females said yes to in every question. As a whole I found that the statistics seemed to be lower than what was expected. A problem with the surveys is that it is unclear as to what condition and atmosphere the survey was issued. Many children are afraid to respond to a survey such as this one because they are afraid that there will be some type of repercussion for their answers. (www.nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/digest2001)

Another survey reported criminal victimization at school within the past six months of taking the survey. The highest percentage was 12%, which were ninth grade males. Another survey asked if the children have brought a weapon to school within the last thirty days of the survey. 11% of all the males said that they have brought a weapon and just three percent of the females said yes. A statistic on the prevalence of street gangs in schools reported that the percentage has gone down from 31% to 19% between 1995 and 1999.

On the contrary to what most people may think, violence in school systems has declined annually since the early 90’s. In 1992, the amount of violent episodes throughout the country was at an outrageous 3.5 million. In 1998, the number had dropped to a little over 2 million cases. Between 1992-1993, the amount of violent

Get Access