Dangerous Schools and What You Can Do about Them.

Abstract

Toxicity toward democracy in schools is intertwined with toxicity toward every individual's rights, say Mr. Hyman and Ms. Snook. They hope that their efforts will help readers understand this truth and make them willing to join the struggle to change the schools. IN RESPONSE to misperceptions of the real extent of school violence, schools have increasingly adopted law enforcement models rather than educational models for violence reduction. What's more, there is little evidence for the efficacy of such prevention approaches as the use of metal detectors, increased police presence in schools, searches of students and lockers, the use of student and staff identification cards, and so on. Even in those exceptional cases where police involvement remains necessary, an overdependence on police intervention can have a variety of unintended negative consequences. But all these approaches focus on violence committed by students and do not address the conditions of schools and the acts of educators that may increase school disruptions. In this article and in our recent book, we examine school violence from a different angle. We argue that educator violence against students, including verbal and physical assaults and the undermining of students' constitutional rights, erodes rather than enhances school safety. Unnecessarily harsh and punitive disciplinary practices against students create a climate that contributes to school violence. This issue is little recognized and scarcely researched. So why is this information important for you to know? The increased climate of punitiveness toward children makes it more difficult to convince school boards, legislators, judges, and juries that harsh discipline is really toxic. If citizens believe that young people are dangerous and that schools are out of control, they will conclude that youthful offenders deserve draconian punishments. We have become a country of punishment promoters whose policies make us the most punitive of all the Western democracies. In this article we'll explain why we believe this to be true and what you can do to help bring about political change. America the Punitive Based on data from 1998, the United States incarcerates 668 citizens for every 100,000 residents. This is higher by a wide margin than any other country for which data exist. Russia and South Africa are our closest competitors. This emphasis on punishment by jailing would be great if it worked, especially with juveniles. Most crimes are committed by males between the ages of around 15 to 25. Fifty-three percent of all identified murderers in 1993 were under the age of 25. Since there will be a 20% increase in the juvenile population by 2005, experts predict a doubling of juvenile arrests for violent crime by 2010. Of course, the experts could be wrong, because violent crime in the U.S. fell 12% in 1995 and has continued to drop. Compared to most Western democracies, America is returning to an 18th-century model of punishment and retribution in dealing with misbehavior, deviancy, and delinquency. However, every study conducted that has compared punishment with prevention in juvenile detention centers demonstrates that education, rehabilitation, and therapy are much more successful than punishment in decreasing the re-arrest rates. But many Americans reject reliable scientific data because they are subject to a pattern of thought we call the Singapore Syndrome. The Singapore Syndrome The Singapore Syndrome is a set of irrational, antidemocratic beliefs that emerged as a result of reactions in 1994 to the proposed public flogging of 18-year-old Michael Fay, an American student living in Singapore. The prevalence of the disease in the American public can be seen in the results of an 8 April 1994 Newsweek poll in which respondents were told, A young American in Singapore is to receive a severe caning under the law there for punishing vandalism. …

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