Solutions to School Violence

Solutions to School Violence

Violence in schools has spread widely throughout the nation. This has caused many problems among students, families, faculty of schools, and residents of the areas. However, their are many possible ways we can stop all this violence in schools. Almost three-fourths of the United States teens are afraid of violent crime amongst their peers (Apfel 23). Violence in schools has become a big problem in today's

society. With all the people being injured or killed in schools by guns and other weapons, more and more people are getting more weapons to bring in to schools. Nearly half of all males and one-third of all students including females said they could easily obtain a handgun if they wanted to (Glazer 14).

The cause of violence can be blamed on many things but 1 mainly. And that one thing is drugs and gangs. Now that more people are selling and buying drugs, people are making money to buy weapons. Gangs, since they came around violence have been increasing steadily. The spread of gangs and drugs has also been implicated in the increasing violence of school youths (Glazer 14).

Experts have also said that most violent conflicts among school-age children can be traced back to long- simmering disputes (Apfel 21). Carrying guns and other weapons around schools is becoming more and more popular all around the world. People think that carrying guns around schools with them will make them cool or fit in with other people like themselves. They're wrong. More and more people who are carrying guns around schools today are getting caught and having them taken away. Since schools have gotten metal detectors and scanners, they have cut down the rate of having handguns in schools by nearly 58%(Glazer 5). Security experts have reported that there is no evidence that a metal detector will solve the problem of violence in schools, even though it offers a highly visible symbol to the community (Apfel 22). Even if the schools with all the gun violence in their schools do put in metal detectors at the front entrances of schools, their are many ways kids can sneak in weapons to school.

In 1990 congress made it a felony to bring a gun within one thousand feet of any school under the "Gun-Free School Zones" provision of the 1990 crime prevention package. This law wont help very much because of the fact that students can sneak in weapons through bathroom windows, or an unguarded entrance during recess (Glazer 6). So there isn't really a safe and reliable way to keep guns away from schools.

Security has become a big part of schools today. More and more schools have been getting metal detectors installed. The N.Y. city public schools report that since the introduction to metal detectors in 1988, serious incidents have declined by 58% in schools with scanners and by 43% without them (Glazer 5). Every school should start putting in metal detectors and scanners if they want to cut down violence. Some schools districts that experimented with metal detectors for a short time found them a bit frustrating (Gordon 27).

It has become very easy to obtain a gun. A survey of Baltimore public-schools students showed that the four most prevalent places to get guns are street corners, friends, drug dealers, and thieves (Gordon 29). And kids all over the world are getting guns from all these places but nobody is doing anything about it. It is very easy for someone to obtain a handgun. All they have to do is go to one of these four places and buy one. Where do they get the money to buy these guns you ask, from selling drugs. If we could stop the selling of drugs just by maybe 20% or even 15%, there would be a whole less violence due to the lack of money. So nobody would be able to buy a weapon.

Teachers are in as much danger of being killed or attacked, as kids are school. The risk of a teacher being attacked by a student has doubled since 1956(Glazer 20). This is a lot considering that you don't hear about too many teacher attacks on the news but you do hear about teens being killed. Approximately 100 teachers have been assaulted annually in the past four school years (Glazer 8).

The big problem involving violence is how we can stop the violence from spreading and increasing. Not nearly as many teens would have guns if they didn't get the money from selling drugs (Gordon 30). So if we can stop the selling of drugs, less people will have money to buy guns and their will be less violence.

We can also blame our parents for violence. When parents buy a gun and put it away, their kid could get a hold of it and bring it to school and already you're in trouble. This is why parents should lock away their weapons not just stick it in a draw or on the top shelf of a closet. Parents are responsible for the conduct and safety of their children and buy keeping a gun where they can get hold of it their putting them in danger (Glazer 29). Violence has caused many problems. Many people have been killed or seriously injured because of violence. What we should do to try and prevent violence in schools from increasing is teach our children young about this stuff and don't keep a weapon around the house unless it's necessary. And if you do keep a weapon in your house, keep it where it can't be found that easily.

For students attending a private school, school uniforms have long been a way of life. Most public schools, however, do not require their students to wear uniforms. That began to change in the 1990s as educators looked for ways to deal with a widely perceived crisis in education. Impressed by the successes found in private schools--the so-called "Catholic school effect" (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993, pp. 286-287)--educational reformers looked for practices that might be transferred to public school settings. Among the ideas they considered was the adoption of school uniforms. The idea seems to be catching on. Although schools adopting these policies have reported improved student behavior and academic achievement, critics question the effectiveness and even the legality of the practice.

The first large public school district to require school uniforms was the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD). Beginning in the fall of 1994 students from kindergarten through eighth grade were required to wear uniforms, a policy that affected approximately 60,000 students in seventy schools (Brunsma & Rocquemore, 1998). In a letter to the editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the LBUSD board president explained the board's reasons for adopting the policy:

Uniforms improve discipline, self-esteem and self-respect. They focus attention upon learning and away from such distractions as fashion competition and gang intimidation. Requiring uniforms enhances school security by permitting identification

...