NCJ Number
74392
Editor(s)
K Baker,
R J Rubel
Date Published
1980
Length
285 pages
Annotation
Diverse theories on the causes and nature of school-based crime and how to cope with it are incorporated in articles drawn from a series of papers commissioned by the Office of Education in the late 1970's to examine the root causes of student misbehavior.
Abstract
The first of four parts contains two articles that examine the historical origins of crime and punishment in the schooling process and assays the extent and consequences of violence and vandalism in the public schools. The second part, in analyzing schools as victims of student crime, includes, among others, articles on the depersonalization of student deviant behavior by overly ascribing its causes to environmental factors, the description of a person-environment fit model as a basis for understanding juvenile crime, and advocacy of a school-community relations network strategy. The third group of articles concentrates on the ways in which the schools themselves directly and indirectly contribute to school vandalism. Factors undermining disciplinary programs in schools, as well as delinquency produced by school conditions according to the 'delinquent subculture' theory, are explored. Other articles classify school crime according to major subcategories of behavioral deviance and assesses the causes of high school absenteeism and various intervention strategies to cope with it. The fourth part of the overall study contains a series of articles on high school vandalism. Novel approaches to preventing school property damage are suggested, research on school vandalism is reviewed, and the thought and behavior patterns of teenagers are examined to diagnose the causes of high school vandalism. About 570 references and an index are provided. For separate articles, refer to NCJ 74393-96, 58777-78, 58799, 58797, 58790, 51427, 49004, and 46722.