School Crime: What can your school do to reduce theft, vandalism, assault, verbal ... It is the duty of the schools to prevent such kind of attitude among children. If.
School Crime: What can your school do to reduce theft, vandalism, assault, verbal harassment, physical harassment, abuse, fighting and other issues that hinder learning for students? Researching the causes (and finding new ways to reduce crime in your school will be future research question) would be a worthy task.
Problem statement For a long time, school officials and parents as well as policy makers have paid huge attention to school crime. Although in countries like USA, UK extreme incidents of school violence can take place and assumed to be of national importance, in Azerbaijan the problem does not get due attention. However, school crime incidents have become a common occurrence recently and have become a subject of great investigation. Therefore need for the need for accurate statistics 'come. There are many different ways to define school crime. Although a clear-cut definition does not exist there are some general criteria: • Any threat, theft, violent attack that is reported to police as a crime. • Crimes committed against children on their way to school, on school playgrounds, in school buildings. • Crimes that are counted only during school hours or also before and after school. • Incidents involving alcohol, drugs, or weapons, involving a gang at school • Hate-crime motivated incidents and all incidents reported to law enforcement agencies. • Bullying- Verbal abuse, physical attacks. • Excessive punishments given by teachers to their students for their mistakes. Unfortunately , it is not possible to get precise figures about school crime as the amount of reported events differ in relation to who gives the information and whether it is acquired by personal interview, telephone interview, questionnaire or is from official records. Although rare, serious incidents of school crime are not a common occurrence in Azerbaijani schools (or they are just not reported) I would like to emphasize the importance of understanding how schools behave as organizations. Tendency to overlook extremely common incidents of minor theft and assault, threats, that go on in the name of “normal childhood behavior” should be taken serious. It is the duty of the schools to prevent such kind of attitude among children. If school is unable to do it then it is huge question mark on the school’s credibility. As the scope of the school crime is very large, this particular research is focused on crimes happening at school walls, particularly at the school N245. The management of the school is interested in finding the reasons behind the crimes taking place in the school and finding ways to avoid it. Research Objectives Given the scarce data available, the objective of this study is to particularly to analyze causes, effects and outcomes of this topic and finding new ways to reduce crime in school N 245. To answer the target question the research examines specific characteristics of offenders and arrestees who participated in criminal incidents at schools in 2015. Because the study dataset is not nationally representative, readers should be cautious in attempting to generalize the findings • Does the school provide minimum safety requirements?(Table 1) • Why pupils conduct crime? (Table 2) • How can the number o crime be reduced? (Future research question) Question 1 will be addressed to school personnel and the second one to the students.
Importance and benefits School violence can cause many problems and therefore it is necessary to limit school violence and help children concentrate on their studies and get good careers. Parents and teachers should take on the responsibility of providing the right guidance, support, care, affection and love to children. If they do this, they can significantly reduce the incidences of violence in school and the violent attitude present in some children. School crimes may have both academic consequences and behavioral consequences. First of all, exposure to violence negatively affects the development of a child and can even cause depression and aggression. Such cases distract students from concentrating on their studies. This can have a huge impact on the careers they will choose. The other negative effect of school violence is the deaths that occur during this type of violence. Many teachers and students have lost their lives during violent disasters in schools including psychological effects.. For example, few months ago angry student killed his stabbed his teacher. Violent crime rates at school may lead the most vulnerable students to drop out of high school as well.
Research design Exploration: Qualitative. We will augment our knowledge by interviewing pupils from 9, 10 grades. Interviews will be conducted by teachers in the class time. 11th classes will be surveyed online as they have less time to concentrate on interviews due to busy schedule with tutor. Anonymity of the interview should be guaranteed to make students comfortable to answer the survey questions and also to make the results most accurate. Questionnaire design Email recruited, self –administered questionnaire will be most appropriate in terms of cost as well as quickness. To make the respondent’s maximum effective multiple choice questions will be introduced. Single response scale will be used (Appendix 1, sample).A suggestion/recommendation offering space will be offered to facilitate student’s contribution in decision making process. Logistics For 9th and 10th graders interview questions will be given on A4 paper during the class and for 11th graders Survey Monkey will be used. Pilot test First the interview will be conducted in one class (9th form). The feedback and course of the actions will help better design the interview and questions in order to get precise information and avoid bias. Evaluation of non-response bias It will be maximum avoided by conducting interviews in the classroom. In order to make the results maximum accurate on responding pupils (who did not participate in the class etc) they will be interviewed on the telephone. Their results will be added to common data base.
Data analyses We will review and send the results to principal, vice principal of the school on the form of Summary Reporting. According to the answers a histogram showing the reasons of why crime happens will be comprised. It will help to identify the most occurring event and will make it easier to establish a solution in the future. The summary of the results both the interview samples and analyzed data will be send to the management. If the management requires the same data will be used for future research in order to find best solution to the problems.
Results: Deliverables
• Development of interview questions • Development of online survey (Survey Monkey) • Timely report to the management (in the beginning and end of the school year) I plan to deliver the results of the interviews and surveys in a month. In case non response bias occurs I will need 2 more weeks to finish with the interviews. The reason why the interview results will be sent to the management twice a year is to enable them to see how the situation changes (and how well the taken measures work). If the interview is conducted more often it can be costly and needless.
Budget It will cover questionnaire (paper) cost and the fee of the conductor (psychologist who will also help to interpret the data) of the interviews. It will also cover Counseling fee of our specialist in case the management decides to take (security and others) measures and continue working with us.
Cost Summary Interviews
Graphic design
Travel costs
Survey Monkey secure account-200
Questionnaire development
Secure FTP site
Research team
Yearly reports (twice)
Equipment/Supplies
Total start-up costs
Table 1 (sample, not full) Yes
No
Require visitors to sign or check in
1
2
Control access to school buildings
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
during school hours Control access to school grounds during school hours Perform one or more random metal detector checks on students Use one or more security cameras to monitor the school
Table 2 (sample, not full) Yes
No
I feel welcomed at school
1
2
I enjoy learning at school
1
2
I feel safe at school
1
2
School rules are reasonable
1
2
Fights are regular
1
2
I have see a knife at school
1
2
Pupils steal
1
2
