Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Violence in schools research paper
Violence in schools research paper
Crime and violence in schools
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Violence in schools research paper
Your phone rings while you are at work and you see that it is your child’s school. You answer the phone and the school’s principal tells you that your child has been suspended for one month for bringing a plastic knife in his/her lunch box. You are scheduled for hearings that have no meaning because the decision is irreversible. These are some of the effects of a zero-tolerance policy. Zero tolerance policies should be eliminated because they disproportionately affect African-American and urban youth, continue to feed the cradle to prison pipeline, create a prison culture in urban communities, and provide a devastating long-term outcome for youth. In attempts to prevent violence in schools across the nation, districts have put into place a policy that has caused turmoil and blurred the lines in the meaning of discipline. After the mass shooting at Columbine, many districts cracked down on anything that resembled violence to a point that a student can be suspended for wearing rosary beads to school because they can be interpreted as a sign of gang involvement. This inflexible policy is treating children as suspects and criminals for rather trivial actions. It is to a point where a simple reference to words like “shoot”, or “bomb” could have a child expelled and charged with conspiracy. The policy is blinding students to their rights and it is becoming a form of oppression by the government and the school institution. Statistics are showing that school campuses are safer than most places were fifteen years ago. From 1993 to 2010, school violence has been on a decline but with the implementation of zero-tolerance, dropout rates and a surge of suspensions are on the rise. In the past couple of years, Massachusetts’ school districts ... ... middle of paper ... ...problem solving instead of an intimidating figure such as the principal or other high officials in a school. Also with programs such as D.A.R.E, students can be exposed to the harm of drugs in order to reduce the amount of arrests and other cases involved. All of these solutions are easier said than done with the lack of funding in schools which would allow for these resources to be available for use but with overcrowded classrooms and teachers that have the responsibility of teaching more than humanly possible, they aren’t able to be used for extracurricular activities to aid in student recovery. Work Cited "READ OR GO TO JAIL Literacy and National Reading Statistics, Teaching Reading: Educational CyberPlayGround." Literacy and the National Reading Statistics, Prison Rates and Test Scores Found on the Educational CyberPlayGround. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2014
For my second article review I decided to do mine over the article Harry Wilson titled Turning off the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The main theme that this particular article deals with is how our school systems have become a direct pipeline for kids to end up in prison and the way to break this pipeline is through our schools changing certain policies they operate by. The main topic of this article that the author talks about frequently that contributes to the “pipeline” is the zero tolerance rule that school systems follow. The author speaks frequently about how the zero tolerance policy is a key factor to the school-to-prison pipeline being eliminated. Throughout the entire duration of the article the reader can expect to be confronted with
A new policy is needed and most certainly should start out with holding schools to handle their own discipline situations, rather than relying on school security and police (Wilson, 2014). School administrators must be able to differentiate between what is a true discipline situation and when a student simply made a mistake. The rate of school suspensions have skyrocketed over the last thirty years from 1.7 million nationwide to 3.1 million and growing today (ACLU, n.d.). Each school needs to create policies of when to get school security involved and what the school’s security job involves. Unless there is a true threat to the safety of the school and/or its student’s law enforcement should never be called (Wison, 2014). The instinct to dial 911 at every infraction has to stop. Furthermore the schools must develop a gender and racial fairness; black children should not be receiving harsher punishments for similar infractions of white students (Wilson,
Drug policies stemming from the War on Drugs are to blame, more specifically, the mandatory minimum sentencing mandates on petty drug charges that have imprisoned millions of non-violent offenders in the last three decades. Since this declaration of war, the percentage of drug arrests that result in prison sentences (rather than probation, dismissal, or community service) has quadrupled, resulting in an unprecedented prison-building boom (Wyler, 2014). There are three main reasons mandatory minimum sentencing laws must be reformed: (1) They impose unduly harsh punishments on relatively low level offenders, leading to the mass incarceration epidemic. (2) They have proven to be cost ineffective fiscally and in crime and drug use reduction. (3) They perpetuate a racially segregated criminal justice system that destroys communities and discourages trust
The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.
A science teacher in Mississippi asked her students to take a picture with their completed DNA Lego model. John Doe took his picture with a smile and a hand gesture in which his thumb, index, and middle finger was raised. This was enough to earn him an indefinite suspension with a recommendation for expulsion because his school administrators believed he flashed a gang sign although he was simply putting up three fingers to represent his football jersey number. (NPR Isensee, 2014). This kind of criminalization of young people contributes to suspension, dropout, and incarceration, and too often pushes students into what is referred to by many education scholars and activists as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that refers to “the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems” (ACLU 2013). The School-to-Prison Pipeline is one of the most urgent challenges in education today. This paper will focus on the following circumstances and policies contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline: 1) resource deprived schools, 2) high-stake testing and 3) zero-tolerance discipline policies. However, it is important to note that the school-to-prison pipeline is a broad problem not limited to these three components and has been influenced by historical inequities (segregated education), concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement (NAACP, 2005). They have each served to isolate and remove a massive number of people, a disproportionately large percentage of whom are youth of color, from their communities and from participation in civil society (NAACP, 2005). I argue for attention to the school-to-pr...
Even since the shooting at Columbine High School caught the attention of America and all the world on April 20, 1999, high school shootings and other forms of violence at schools has been plaguing America during the last ten years. It is also found that most of the violence that occurs in high schools is caused by young men. Students aren’t feeling safe at school anymore and parents are enraged that students could bring the weapons to school in the first place. Many people have brought their own opinions into play about why violence in schools occurs. Such causes range from violence in the media, being treated poorly by peers and administrators in school, all the way to poor parental decisions. Although these are only a few of the possible causes for violence in schools, they are defiantly the most prevalent reasons.
The school to prison pipeline is a phenomenon that refers to the practices and policies that have pushed school children, especially the most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile justice system. This disturbing occurrence indicates the prioritization of incarceration over the education of children. Most alarmingly, many of the children being targeted have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect. Instead of being targeted, these children would much rather benefit from additional counseling and educational services. Moreover, the knowledge acquired in this course will be incorporated in this paper and used to explain the points made. In this term paper, what will be discussed is the expansion of the zero tolerance policy, the different views on the policy, who is mostly targeted, the effects on the juveniles and any alternative solutions that could diminish this dismaying occurrence for becoming a larger problem.
United States. Reading to Achieve: A Governor's Guide to Adolescent Literacy. Washington: National Governors Association, 2005. Print.
The zero tolerance policy is strict and devises rules for students and faculty alike. It is a policy that doesn't ask questions when a rule is broken which often results in suspension and expulsion. The policy also addresses the possession of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Many schools have adopted this policy and have observed both positive and negative results.
Gabbard’s (2013) application of zero tolerance policies goes hand in hand with this phenomenon known as the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP). Archer (2009:868) defines the STPP as “the collection of education and public safety policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren out of the classroom and into the streets, the juvenile justice system, or the criminal justice system.” When Fowler (2011:16) studied the STPP, they concluded that “...the single greatest predictor of future involvement in the juvenile system is a history of disciplinary referrals at school.” Because of its huge predictor of criminality, this is a serious issue that must be analyzed to prevent a catastrophic and vicious cycle that forces society’s children out of school, int...
Martinez, S. (2009). A system gone berserk: How are zero-tolerance policies really …..affecting schools? Preventing School Failure, 53(3), 153-157. Retrieved from …..http://search.proquest.com.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/docview/228530113?acco…..untid=6579
Khadaroo, Teicher. A. “School suspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The Christian Science Monitor. March 31, 2013. Web.
Violence in school goes back to the 1800s’. The first publicly funded schools for delinquents was built in Massachussettes during 1847. In 1899 Illinois “established the first statewide court for children”. During the 1900s’ “progressive education movements challenge, emphasized on strict discipline in public schools”. (b19) In the 1940s’ teachers still supported the use of progressive education, but there was an uproar in juvenile delinquency after World War Two. The 1960s’ courts expanded the use of human rights and process protections to students. School began to hire security, and monitoring devices, to protect schools from vandalism, and burglary. The 1990s’ sparked congress to create a “gun-free school zone”(b18), by making it illegal to bring guns within 1,000 feet of any school. In 1995 violence for juveniles reached the top at a rapid growth, then declined.
In recent years, tragedies have been visited upon schools across the country. From Kentucky to Oregon to Colorado, the notion of schools as safe havens has been shattered by the sound of gunfire. These acts are not limited to any geographic regions or family backgrounds, nor do they have a single catalyst. Those who have committed such heinous acts have done so for different reasons, at different times, in different schools. But these acts of school violence have at least one thing in common- they have spurred all of us to take a look at what can be done to better protect children and teachers at school. Protecting our children is not simply a matter of public policy. It is a matter of strengthening basic values, of teaching children right from wrong, of instilling in them respect for others. We each have a responsibility to work to end youth violence and to keep schools safe for children and for those who teach them. Youth violence in many schools has reached universal proportions. It is not only happening in our high schools, it has also made its way into our elementary and middle schools. Everyone seems to have a different perspective on why there is such a problem with school safety. Some say it is the parents’ fault, some say it is the media, and others blame the schools. Yet, the question still remains. What can be done to make schools safer for the children and staff? One thing we need to do is learn to listen to our children and observe their behavior. According ...
The most recent acts of violence by children have prompted us as a nation to look at the causes and possible solutions to this crisis in our schools. In fact, according to Public Agenda, a national organization that conducts public opinion research on educational issues, school safety was identified as the most important issue affecting schools by those surveyed (Johnson & Immerwahr, 1994/1995).