Security and Crime Prevention Strategies in California Public Schools
- ISBN-10
- 1587031124
- ISBN-13
- 9781587031120
- Pages
- 54
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1999
- Publisher
- California State Library, California Research Bureau
- Author
- Marcus Nieto
Description
School districts in California generally respond to school violence in two distinct ways, according to a California Research Bureau survey. The most common approach is through violence prevention curricula whereby individual one-on-one violence and aggressive behavior is addressed through counseling, life skills building, peer mediation and conflict resolution. The other, but less common approach, is to make it physically difficult for terrorist acts to occur on school campuses by using a combination of highly visible security personnel along with detection technologies such as metal detectors and surveillance cameras, and more conventional security measures such as canine searches, locks, and metal bars. Few school districts are prepared to deal with a catastrophic event, such as taking of hostages or a tragedy such as that at Columbine. These and other findings from the survey raise important policy questions.
