Violence Prevention Programs

 

A majority of public school principals (78 percent) reported having some type of formal school violence prevention or reduction programs (tables 25 and 26). The percentage of schools with both 1-day and ongoing programs (43 percent) was almost double the percentage of schools with only ongoing programs (24 percent) and quadruple the percentage of schools with only 1-day programs (11 percent).

Schools in which a serious crime was reported were more likely to have violence prevention programs than those in which no crime or only less serious crime had occurred (93 percent compared with 74 and 79 percent, respectively; tables 25 and 27). Schools with serious crime also had more programs per school. They reported a mean of 6 programs per school compared with 3.4 violence prevention programs in schools with no crime or lesser crimes only (table 27).

In some public schools, incidents during 1996-97 requiring police contact were used to modify or introduce new violence prevention programs. Of schools with violence prevention programs that had reported one or more crimes in 1996-97, 31 percent had used these incidents to introduce or modify their violence prevention programs (table 28).

School principals were asked if, during the 1996-97 school year, they had any formal programs or efforts intended to prevent or reduce school violence. Selected components of prevention/reduction programs were listed and principals were asked if any of their programs included each of the following:

 

The prevention curriculum, counseling/social work, and review/revision of schoolwide discipline practices were components used most often by schools with violence prevention or reduction programs (89 percent, 87 percent, and 85 percent, respectively), while reorganization of school, grades, or schedules was used least often (28 percent; table 29). With the exception of community/parental involvement, which 48 percent of schools reported using, between 63 percent and 81 percent of the schools with violence prevention or reduction programs reported using the remaining components.