The Panel on Juvenile Crime: Prevention, Treatment, and Control convened a workshop on October 2, 1998, to explore issues related to educational performance, school climate, school practices, learning, student motivation and commitment to school, and their relationship to delinquency. The workshop was designed to bring together researchers and practitioners with a broad range of perspectives on the relationship between such specific issues as school safety and academic achievement and the development of delinquent behavior. Education and Delinquency reviews recent research findings, identifies gaps in knowledge and promising areas of future research, and discusses the need for program evaluation and the integration of empirical research findings into program design.

The problem of violence in schools has not gone away despite radical reductions in violent crimes throughout the country over the last decade. Students continue to harrass, haze, and harm each other in a variety of ways, disrupting classrooms and whole schools. In the wake of the Columbine massacre, many focused on the worst kind of school violence: deadly assaults with dangerous weapons. But other forms of violence are more persistent, common, and just as destructive in many ways: fighting, sexual abuse, carrying weapons to school, vandalism, and assorted other crimes that happen behind the closed doors of elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. The consequences range from violent victimization and death, to the disruption of learning and fear among student bodies and teaching staffs. Here, Thomas provides a foundation for understanding why the violence occurs, preventing it from happening, and treating both offenders and victims after it happens. Using scores of case descriptions to illustrate the types of school violence and their treatment in recent years, the author skillfully shows readers how the problem of violence and crime in schools is an insidious issue that cannot go untreated. He offers both tested and proposed methods for dealing with a host of violence issues and a guide to planning treatment of the problem and its associated consequences. He answers the questions: What are prominent types of violence in American schools? What conditions contribute to those types of violence? What methods can be applied in an effort to reduce school violence? Readers will come away from this book with a greater understanding of the scope of violence in America's schools, and the myriad ways of addressing it.

The perception that our nation's public schools are disorderly and unsafe is widespread, and the image of the public school is deteriorating. Since 1974, the Gallup organization has gathered opinions about the public schools. The percentage giving the schools an "A" rating declined from 18% to 6% between 1974 and 1983 (Gallup, 1974, 1984). In a recent survey of America's teenagers, only 9% gave the schools an "A" rating (Bahner, 1980, p. 106). Lack of discipline tops the list of the problems adults see facing schools, and class disturbances and theft are reported by teenagers to be "very big" or "fairly big" problems in their schools (Bahner, 1980, p. 107). These public perceptions are fostered by and reflected in national media attention ("City Schools in Crisis," 1977; "Help! Teacher Can't Teach!" 1980; "High Schools under Fire," 1977). Public concern is also reflected in Congressional hearings where testimony creates the image of grave disorder within our schools (U.s. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, 1975, 1976b; U.s. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education, 1980). The public has given the schools low marks, and the Senate Judiciary Committee (1975) gave the schools an" A" in violence and vandalism. In short, parents, students, and public officials are alarmed at what they see as a rising tide of violence and disorder in the schools and are concerned about how much learning can occur in a disruptive environ ment, and about the safety of teachers and students.