Citation

Toby J. Crime Justice 1983; 4: 1-47.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Violence in school is not new. Especially on the college level, deaths and injuries from hazing have long occurred sporadically, as have student riots. But widespread violence in public and secondary schools seems to have developed only in the past generation, especially in the United States but increasingly in other urban-industrial societies. Two kinds of violence should be distinguished. One is violence perpetrated by predatory adolescent male trespassers who enter school buildings to steal or rob; assaults may occur to disable victims. Intruder violence is most common in the largest cities. The other type of violence is committed by enrolled students against members of the school community: teachers, fellow students, staff members. Their violent acts include robbery, especially extortion of money and valuables from fellow students, but their main motivation appears to be anger, expressed in assaults against both students and staff members. Both these types of school violence can be understood in terms of the weakening of social control over adolescents and young adults in modern societies. Lack of family and neighborhood controls frees those youngsters not committed to the school and its values to express their predatory or aggressive impulses. This is, of course, not the whole explanation of school violence. Individual personality development explains why some persons take advantage of these opportunities for violence that are offered by a fluid society. If modern societies are to reverse course and reduce violence in public secondary schools, they probably will have to gain greater control over adolescents. One approach to this end is to increase the voluntariness of student enrollment, thus giving students in public secondary schools a greater stake in behavioral conformity. Such an approach requires a reexamination of an established tradition of modern societies: compulsory school attendance.