That would be true, if violence was increased to begin with. Shiraldi, (2001) indicates that student victimization has changed little over the past two decades. Other research states that serious incidents in schools have declined. (Johnson, Boyden & Pittz, 2001) GRAPHS Instead, children are expelled for having aspirin, or parts of Halloween costumes. If the original intent of the law was to deal with students on a case-by-case basis, what happened? Why did policy governing the possession of weapons come to mean zero tolerance of a vast area of behaviors including merely watching fights?.
Schiraldi, et al (2001) maintains that news media coverage plays a major role, particularly since no rise in assault is occurring. As mentioned previously, other researcher's data indicates that gun violence in schools is unchanged. It was only when the issue of gun violence emerged in white neighborhoods, that the issue suddenly had greater media push and the concern of the media and the nation (Keleher, 2000). Rather than utilizing the case exception to the one year expulsion requirement, the policy seems to have become a panic reaction and an easy way for school officials to deal with a student any way they pleased under the guise of a federal law. Existing data that indicates there are increasing numbers of ways that students can be expelled by expanding what we call violence (Maeroff, 2000.) The data does not support that zero tolerance has been in line with the intended effectiveness:.
Heavside (1998) found that among schools reporting no crime, only 5% reported moderate or stringent security measures, while 39% of schools were using moderate or stringent security. .
Mayer and Leone (1999) indicate that rules are more effective than security measures in reducing crime and violence. In other words, security measures were correlated with increased rates of school violence. This data is not causal.
Italicized words = Note - will not be included in paper COVER PAGE ABSTRACT NOTES Objectives (from Syllabus) Maybe we can use this for something: This paper will compare inpatient/residential and intensive out patient treatment programs, identify the characteristics of successful subs...
