schools in the United States. High profile incidents involving the use of firearms at schools colors public perceptions of violent behavior in the nation's schools. While such incidents are deplorable and must be stopped, however, they are infrequent to the point that most students likely will never experience such an incident (United States Department of Education and United States Department of Justice, 1999).
Aside from these high profile incidents, however, more than 2.7 million crimes affecting students occur in schools in the United States each year. Of these 2.7 million crimes, more than 200,000 are classified as serious·rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault (Kaufman, et al., 1999).
While the incidence of serious crimes and lesser crimes in public schools in the United States has either dropped somewhat or remained unchanged since 1993, a higher proportion of students report feeling unsafe at school compared with previous surveys of student perceptions (Kaufman, et al., 1999). While education and criminal justice authorities tend to blame media reporting for such perceptions in light of the statistics, such attributions appear to be unrealistic and too dependent upon minor statistical changes in the incidence of crime in schools. If students feel unsafe when at school, it is incumbent upon educational administrators to create environments wherein students do not perceive high levels of risk of physical danger.
Formal school safety programs and policies, no-tolerance policies, on-campus police presence, conflict management programs, student courts, mediation, and awareness education all are approaches that have been implemented by public school administrations in efforts to control violence in public schools. These efforts have yielded varying degrees of success; however, none have been fully effective in causing substantial reductions in the incidence of violent and other criminal student behavio...