Chapter
Dr. Willie G. Stevens
An Analysis of Recidivism of Violent Behavior in an Elementary School
Dedicated to my wife Sharon, my loving and devoted helper, a wife of God-fearing character, a dedicated mother of our three children: Sharina, Lakisha, and Joseph.
To Dad, the Rev. Joe Stevens, and my late mother, Mrs. Loree V. Stevens; what an awesome lady!
To my sisters, Carol, Jean, Betty, and Dianne; your support will always be remembered. I willingly acknowledge the input of others, especially my teachers and students, in the development of this research.
Among those who were especially formative were Apostle S. D. Johnson, Dr. James Seegers, and Dr. Gwen Johnson.
Special thanks are due to Dr. Larry Fields whose mentoring surpasses all. I am eternally grateful to God for allowing such an awesome individual to impact my life; he is one of the greatest.
God bless you all.
Chapter 1
Today’s teachers and students are constantly at risk because of the increase in violent crimes within schools. According to the Uniform Crime Report (1981), 18.5 percent of all arrests involving violent crime are committed by individuals who are under the age of eighteen. In fact, it has been estimated that juvenile misconduct of a violent nature leading to adjudication may occur in up to 95 percent of the nation’s youth under the age of twenty-one (Siegel and Senna, 1981). Often these children and youths are labeled unofficially as delinquent, conduct disordered, or antisocial (Rock 1992). Whatever the label, though, various forms of juvenile misconduct, rule breaking, and especially violent behaviors are commonplace in public schools today.
Continued occurrences of violent behaviors instill fear in both the teachers and the students who attend the public schools (Boesel, 1978). Needless to say, this atmosphere is not conducive to the provision of a safe environment in which to learn. Because of this fear as well as other contributing factors, many students believe that for their protection they must carry some type of weapon to school (Parade, 1992)
The question most frequently asked is, “What is causing this explosion in the number of violent crimes in the schools?” The
causes for the increase in violence within the classroom continue to be researched. Many professionals believe that increase in domestic violence and child abuse results in children who display learning and behavior characteristics that lead to frustration, school failure, and even retaliatory violence. According to Craig, “living with violence inhibits the cognitive processes by which a child develops an awareness of the self” (Craig, 1992) This lack of self-awareness results in a feeling of powerlessness and may lead to the child’s seeing adults as threatening rather than as supporters of and providers for their innate needs. A sense of personal power is perceived as essential to all people, and many children find that bringing weapons to school provides them with that sense of power. Associated with the need for power is the children’s need to have a sense of control in their lives. Many children have no feeling of control or sense of routine in their lives. Often this lack of routine and control is a result of abuse or violence occurring within the home or community. Other children lack routine or the feeling of control because of homelessness or poverty. Children in these situations may also lack feelings of significance and competency. When these four needs are unmet, children may turn to violence to fulfill them. 
Teachers in today’s schools must be aware that, no matter the personal characteristics of the teacher or how caring the teacher
may be, the occurrence of violent behaviors within the classroom is highly probable. Indeed, these violent behaviors may involve guns, knives, brass knuckles, or other weapons. Therefore, teachers must be proficient in the identification of factors that may be predictive of violence. Teachers must be trained to lessen the possibility of violence through the arrangement of the learning environment. Furthermore, teachers must develop classroom procedures to provide for their safety and the safety of their students if violence should occur within the classroom. Without this preparation, the teachers will place themselves in a reactive position, which may result in interventions that may escalate the student’s violent outburst (Epanchin, 1991).
Factors Predictive of Violent Behavior
Major factors which have been shown to be predictive of violent behavior, or indicative of possible violence by a student, include the following:
- 1. Evidence of past or continuing participation in violent behavior (Keilitz and Dunivant, 1967; Monahan, 1982).
2. Evidence of the child’s being a victim of abuse (Craig, 1992).
3. Evidence of a family climate of violence including verbal threats (Patterson, et al, 1975; Patterson, 1982).
4. Evidence of the student’s exhibiting cruelty to animals (Sinclair and Alexson, 1992).
5. Presence of a subculture supporting aggression as a positive attribute (Bandura, 1976).
6. A history of temper tantrums and verbal aggression (Schloss and Smith, 1987).
In certain situations other factors also emerge as predictive of violent behavior. This thesis will report on research involving identifying the factors present in our schools which are predictive, a comparison of data regarding the prevalence of violent behaviors in three schools, and our work in developing and proving an effective program to Counter violent behaviors in one school.
Background of the Study
A thorough review of the literature found very little information on the subject of identifying or profiling elementary aged students, at-risk for eventual violent acts. The bulk of the research identifies disordered behavior from the perspective of special education or at-risk elements related to academic failure at an early age. Studies of at-risk prediction models focus on personality and situational factors, identifying delinquency from adolescence to adulthood. Most literature concerning the prediction of at-risk behavior identifies personality disorders as the root of the violent act. Hence, the majority of practically applicable theories, studies and reviews are found within the body of criminology research and mental health as opposed to education.
For students steeped in the culture of violence, classrooms often offer one last chance to expose them to more constructive ways of relating. Teachers learn quickly that students who live in violent neighborhoods
are different from those who live in safe communities. In certain ways, teaching is not teaching and kids are not kids. Aggression and belligerence are omnipresent. Young people quickly join their peers in detention halls, in-school suspensions, juvenile facilities, or other alternative settings.
Escalating school violence reflects a troubling reality; students in poverty are not aware of, have not seen, and so do not value alternatives to their behavior. Aggression, callousness, stress, high mobility, and homelessness may be abnormal for advantaged youths, but for those who grow up in neighborhoods pervaded by these dynamics, they are commonplace. These children have little in their neighborhoods to envy. They are surrounded by environmental degradation, idols that admire violence, and raw fear.
The sorting process starts early and may appear inexorable. “These days it seems as if babies are born and programmed to be little hoods and gangsters,” physician D. Prothrow-Stith (1991) quotes a ghetto teen musing. ”All the young ones want to be like the older guys clocking
dollars and looking fly [cool].”
Students whose peer group has seemingly endless power over them believe they have no alternative to victimizing others and putting themselves behind bars. When in trouble, they mouth the same lines: “I joined a gang because I wanted a family.” “I carry a gun because all the other kids do.” “I can’t be different from my homies; they’ll hurt” me.
Schools must help these students find new identities outside their present fragile and superficial ones. If a student sees himself as no more than the sum of a particular sports jacket, three gold chains, and his hood affiliation, he hangs by a fragile thread indeed. That’s why kids kill one another when they are “dissed”: they feel trapped; unable psychologically to survive without retaliating in kind. It will take a whole new self-definition for them to be able to walk away from a fight.
How can schools help violent students envision a gender way to
live? How can we provide them with a better way to see and experience life? Our schools must take the lead in introducing these students to an alternative culture of nonviolent options through gentle teaching and moral vision. We must help them discover new ways to solve social problems and to make empathetic decisions. This study is intended to provide insight which opens up practical avenues for decreasing the level of violence in the schools.
School Leadership and Violent Acts
Violent acts have occurred in our local schools, putting our children in harm’s way. This local problem has been an alarming
element disrupting the daily business and functioning of school learning and achievement. Schreiber-Dill and Haberman, products of the educational Community, have tried to describe the situation for readers of Educational Leadership (1995; p. 69) in this way:
“Escalating school violence reflects a troubling reality-students in poverty are not aware of, have not seen, and so do not value alternatives to their behavior. Aggression, callousness, stress, high mobility, and homelessness may be abnormal for advantaged youths,but for those who grow up in neighborhoods pervaded by these dynamics, they are commonplace.”
For too long, homes and schools have been breeding grounds for behavior that is steeped in fear, distrust, verbal threats and physical! emotional pain as a result of violent cultures and neighborhoods. (Schreiber-Dill and Haberman, 1995; p. 70) Curwin (1995) has clearly and decisively connected violence to devastating fear and loss of control. Schools that suffer from continual disruptive behavior are faced with a challenge and a responsibility for finding solutions that ensure safe learning environments. Promoting school empowerment has been crucial for school safety and crisis planning has been a necessary accompaniment. (Lichtenstein, Schonfeld, and Kline, 1994; p. 82) Managing a crisis effectively that results from school violence, e.g.; on the playground, in the lunchroom, in the classroom, etc., occurs through cooperative planning and strong administrative leadership.
Reitzug and Burrello (1995; p. 48) have done a study regarding empowerment and self-renewal leadership behavior among 13 principals from 13 school districts in the Midwest, Southwest, and Southeast. Self-renewal efforts have included teachers who are involved in decision making towards promoting effective school organizations. Senge (1990) has called these effective schools “learning organizations” where leadership plays a critical role. John O’Neil (1995) has had conversations with Peter Senge and has reported on his ideas about the power of leadership, which Senge refers to as “the fifth discipline,” in schools and other organizations. Schools are not generally considered learning organizations because there has been “very little sense of collective learning going on in most schools.” (p. 20) Cooperative learning has been advocated for students but not for administrators and teachers. Education and business have faced the same challenges according to Senge; cultural changes require collective learning for any kind of systemic change in business and education. The principal of a school has to involve people at all levels for a safe environment that supports a collective vision of a school ~here people want to be. According to Senge, the visionary process “always involves two dimensions. One is creating a reflective environment and a degree of safety where individuals can rediscover what they really care about. And the second dimension is to bring those people together in such a way that their individual visions can start to interact.” (p. 22)
Vicky Schreiber- Dell and Martin Haberman (1995; p. 69) have tried to help us understand the dynamics and troubling reality of escalating school violence. “Aggression, callousness, stress, high mobility, and homelessness may be abnormal for advantaged youths, but for those who grow up in neighborhoods pervaded by these dynamics, they are commonplace.” We refer to these adjectives describing violent behavior in our school in the research as variables which have been identified and are treatable.
Schools nationwide have been given a mandate to reduce violent behaviors which endanger students and staff and reduce educational effectiveness. It is up to school administrators to provide leadership In preventing recidivism. Students at risk for violent behavior and recidivism of violence are identifiable; they are often known to the community, or they may be identified through data which is already on hand in the school district. How to apply that data to predict events of violence and to intervene in the pattern which moves these children progressively over time towards juvenile crime, is less clear. This research examines certain readily available predictive variables and investigates the effects of an empowered administrative context as an intervention with at risk students.
Students at risk for violence may be identified through data already provided to the district data-bank. The purpose of this study is to test a model of home-school coordination which empowers teachers, parents and administrators in dealing with elementary school students at risk for violent behavior and recidivism of violent behavior patterns. In a context of empowered leadership within the school, children can learn a more effective behavior pattern, or way of relating to others, instead of violent actions. If parents, teachers and administrators work together to provide consistent empowered leadership, recidivism of violence may be prevented or reduced.
School systems have the power to predict violent behavior. (Scott, 1992) Violent behavior can be reduced in the schools, home, and community according to the research by Lester (1989). Preventing its reoccurrence is up to school leadership. In most cases recidivism is regarded as delinquent behavior that is uncorrectable. Most juvenile offenders become adult criminals because the juvenile justice system did not work for them. Research by Wheeler (1994) suggests that early intervention could save a lot of taxpayer money in dealing with recidivism in the legal sense.
School districts/counties have the power to address violent behavior by identifying at risk children through these characteristics; thus, curtailing recidivism. (Scott, 1992; Hardy and Manning et al, 1991) Schools have a responsibility and a mandate to provide appropriate educational leadership to correct the behaviors early; thus, curtailing recidivism.
Community involvement is an important key to correcting critical behavior factors related to at risk students. Through the schools, behavior changes can be addressed. Characteristics of at risk behavior can be observed by teachers, parents, aides, counselors, and other school professionals. It is up to the school administration to provide leadership in preventing recidivism of violent behaviors. The school can do this through involving parents as well as the school community and empowering them to work with the child effectively to increase behavior options and change his or her response pattern.
The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School District manages a discipline incident databank which has partitioned clusters of variables. The incidents of violent behavior in the schools of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School District have been organized into three categories and correlated with demographic variables, and achievement variables. The computer-assigned numerical values for these variables have been totaled for each student in the District. From the total pool of students in one school, approximately 78 students were then identified as at risk for violent or aggressive behaviors and treated for aggressive personality and or violent behavior syndrome with individual educational treatment plans that involved different levels of school organization.
The null hypothesis is tested to verify the apparent effects of empowerment modeling in the test school (School A vs. non-treatment leadership styles). Additional hypotheses are presented to test the predictive variables of achievement gains, attendance, and family income below the poverty level.
Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference in identification of at risk students for predicting recidivism of violent behavior between schools with a Home School Coordinator functioning under a local principal’s leadership using empowerment modeling and schools using a customary (non-treatment) approach within the county school system.
• There is no significant difference between the means of achievement gains for violent students in the three elementary schools and achievement gains at the county level.
• There is no significant difference between the means of poor attendance for violent students in the three elementary schools and poor attendance at the county level.
• There is no significant difference between the means of family annual income for violent students in the three elementary schools and family annual income at the county level.
Alternative Hypothesis: There is a significant difference between a Home School Coordinator functioning under a local principal’s leadership in schools and identification of at risk students for predicting recidivism of violent behavior within the county school system.
In addition, the following concepts, in operational terms, are proposed in order to establish their credibility and interaction as related to the null hypothesis:
The following terms are defined for purposes of this study:
At risk refers to marginal students who depict violent and/or aggressive behavior. These students usually come from poverty and/ or single family homes.
Juvenile crime refers to juveniles arrested for drug or gun possession, and other violent or deviant acts breaking state or federal law; performance management.
Home School Coordinator’s role in teacher/student behavior improvement involves goal setting, feedback, praise and establishing time priorities.
School leadership is defined as the principal’s effectiveness in teacher/student success involves visiting classrooms, achievement and training, and supporting teachers.
Legislation on juvenile crime refers to stricter safety codes for schools and other public institutions and stricter penalties for
repeat offenders which many states have enacted.
Severe behavior problems refers to violent conduct that causes difficulty in the classroom or home.