School Violence

1148 Words3 Pages

Preventing school violence has been an issue in our society for so long it has almost become commonplace. According to an article on www.infoplease.com, since the year 2000, there have been a recorded 64 shooting related incidents that involved publicly occupied areas. That is an occurrence of almost five per year. Of those 64, 94% of these incidents were school related shootings. The violence goes from elementary schools all the way up to college universities. The statistics are not pretty by any means. So what are we to do? Should we institute better security? For all of these tragedies, it is time reasonable measures are finally taken to implement new methods of prevention and to address the school violence issues as a severely significant problem.
Of all of the incidents over the past decade, one stands out to me simply from the defense that was used at trial. Michael Carneal, the shooter that was involved in West Paducah, had a startling revelation through his defense attorney. Through examinations his defense psychologist, Dewey Cornwell, said that he was “fed up with school, parent’s not paying attention and nobody caring about him.” (Gerler, 2004) In the shootings at newton, Connecticut, the assailant had a similar defense at his side. The characteristics shown from many of the shooters have had many school districts change their views. The educators and law makers have begun to profile potentially violent students.
The NSSC, which is known as the National School Safety Center, have checklists that are supposed to help teachers and other persons involved in the education of students. The checklist is aimed at helping to identify characteristics of students that are more willing to commit acts of violence. The checklist i...

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...o make schools a safer place for our children, but until we actually put something positive in place that works the violence will only continue.

Works Cited

Booth, B. (2011, May). Retrieved from Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/gun-control-initiatives-to-be-debated-by-senate-committee-today-here-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-each-proposal/
Bourjaily, P. (2005). How To Teach Your Child Gun Safety. Field And Stream.
Cline, S. (2012, December 18). Retrieved from usnews: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/12/18/the-gun-control-debate-in-plain-english
Gerler, E. R. (2004). Handbook of School Violence. San Diego: Routlege.
Klonsky, M. (202). How Smaller Schools Prevent School Violence, 65-69. Retrieved from Keep and Bear Arms: http://www.keepandbeararms.com
Statistics, C. (n.d.). Retrieved from info please: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

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