Frequency of Crimes in U.S. Secondary Schools

Frequency of Crimes in U.S. Secondary Schoolls


The topic needs to be researched, the problems and challenges
Evidence-based survey has determined that majority of the public secondary schools have low levels of serious crimes. Theft and fighting are common in these schools. These vices are exacerbated due to the presence of influence, availability of weapons and freedom to carry and use these weapons, (Gottfredson, 2000). Among high school students, research reveals that verbal abuse to teachers is common and is considered the most common violence that is does not attract capital punishment. Verbal abuse is considered crime, but this offense has not been reported to the police and is not
documented.  However, violence and crime in U.S. secondary school do not seem to interfere with student’s learning activities regardless of whether the crime is causing harm or does not cause harm.
Psychologists have indicated that high school crimes have been reported as disorder behaviors that affect teens and more especially when they are in a group. About three thirds of high schools in America are described with three safety scoring namely: being safe, very safe and only about 1% of them is considered unsafe, (Crosse, forthcoming). Nevertheless, chronic problems that U.S. high schools face include inability to have procedures that can report offenders and victims of violence. Only most serious incidents are likely to be reported to the police giving as an assumption that there could be high levels of violent crimes that are not reported. Parents are also considered from the perspective of having responsibilities to determine violence in high school. Most often, parents are aware of their children’s behavior and they should single them out whenever they seem to demonstrate unreasonable behaviors. The low, but significant percentage of violence and crimes in U.S. secondary schools are caused by a few students personality, majority of them from comprised parenting. Peer pressure and group influence also seem to determine the occurrence of crimes and violence in U.S. secondary schools.
Intended outcome of the research
The aim of this study is to explore the frequency of crime and violence in American Secondary Schools.  Evidence-based research data has been collected for several years about U.S. public secondary schools. The results from these studies have remained consistent in showing historical trends high school crime statistics. According to previous and accumulating studies, crime and violence of all levels in American secondary schools are common. The U.S. Department of Education, (2001) show that crime and violence in these institutions are clustered within a relatively small number of groups schools. The survey results show that this problem is clustered among 4% of the total schools across 51 States. Researchers are likely to use the following standardized variables when studying crime and violence prevalence in these schools: Violent Crime, Moderate Crime, Isolated Crime and No crime.
The current investigation is aims at determining the frequency of the select violence and crime within U.S. secondary school. Even though the frequency of the same has been low, present data reveals that there are variations and these variations may provide new information about the trends of the problem in the society. When studying crime and violence survey, there are hundreds of variable used. The large number of variables aim at showing the relationship between variable these relationship is used to provide solutions that will cure the problem, (Kaufman et al., 2000). For example, high violence and crime frequency maybe related to lack of uniformed law enforcement officers within the school compound during school sessions. Also, reports of high number of crime statistics is related to lack of effective security protocol within the school program. Ensuring safety requires maximum utilization of security resources available and designing procedures such as random thorough checks of weapons among students who are suspected to be violence. Schools with high number of violence and crime reports are considered having little security measures and the outcome of these studies will provide guidelines and clue on how to approach and improve the problem.
Methodology
Secondary data will be used for this study. The data that will be analyzed for this research study will be obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) database. In this survey database, the data set will be chosen from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) research program. Currently, the study units will target 2556 schools spread across 51 U.S. states. The 2556 is considered a national representative of secondary schools that whose data will be collected for this study. The most recent SSOCS data will be used for this study.
Data for this research will be analyzed using the SPSS statistical software version 22 for Windows 7. Due to the magnitude of the problem and due to the large number of variables contained within the database, a wide range of statistics will be used to present the results, but this will depend on the research questions posed. Descriptive, linear regression and analysis of variance will be used to present results from various variables of interest. The relationship among these variables will be used to determine the trend of crime and violence in U.S. high schools hence guiding on the solutions and intervention recommendations that will be required. The variables of interest for this study are as follows:
Frequency of student bullying incidents

Student verbal abuse of teachers incidents

Number of violent incidents recorded and reported
Number of violent and crime incidents reported to police
School shooting incidents reported
Number of school with more than one violence incident
The type of violence and crime incidents
Reference
U.S. Department of Education. (2001). A closer look at drug and violence prevention efforts in American Schools: Report on the study on school violence and preventing. Retrieved on April 8, 2016 from www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/PES/eval.html.
Crosse, S., Burr, M., Cantor, D., & Hartman, I. (Forthcoming). Casting A Wide Net: Drug and
Violence Prevention Efforts in American Schools. Study on School Violence and
prevention. Draft report submitted to the U.S. Department of Education.
Kaufman, P., Chen, X., Choy, S.P., Ruddy, S.A., Miller, A.K., Fleury, J.K., Chandler, K.A.,
Rand, M.R., Klaus, P., & M.G. Planty. (2000). Indicators of School Crime and Safety,
2000. [NCES 2001-017/NCJ-184176]. Washington D.C.: U.S. Departments of Education
and Justice.
Gottfredson, G., Gottfredson, D.C., Czeh, E.R., Cantor, D., Crosse, S.B., & Hantman, I. (2000). National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools. Final Report for the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, Grant # 96-MU-MU-008. Ellicot City, MD: Gottfredson Associates, Inc.