Transcript Schools and delinquency - Southeast Missouri State University

Schools and delinquency
Schools
• Children more at risk if they are truant or
have dropped out of school
• More at risk if they have poor academic
records
• Feeling of alienation from school
• Children who do not like school, do not do
well and do not do homework at risk
Schools
• Children who do well at school are less at
risk, even if poor, abused and/or neglected
• 74% of nonoffenders graduate from high
school. Among chronic offenders (4 or
more arrests) it is less than 10%
• 60% of prisoners have NOT had 12 years of
education
Schools
• Is school a cause of delinquency?
• School failure hypothesis: they feel frusted
and angry, seek out others who are similar
and engage in antisocial behavior. They get
negative responses from adults, and this
reinforces the behaviors
Schools
• Problem Behavior syndrome: school failure
and problem behaviors have common
causes (impulsivity, aggression, low selfcontrol, etc)
• Another possibility is that school failure
leads to low self-concept and then
delinquency
Schools
• Children who are poor are more likely to
have problems in school and become
delinquent
• Middle class measuring rod, expectations of
teachers
Other factors
• High school pressures, student cliques and
stereotyping, alienation of some students
• Curriculum problems
• Tracking
• Non-college tracked students do more
poorly, participate less in school activities,
more likely to be delinquent and drop out
Tracking
• Students locked out of opportunities
• Stigma associated with tracking (might
begin at the lower grades)
• Impact of labeling
• Evidence is mixed with respect to
delinquency
Dropping out
• Youths with antisocial histories are likely to
increase their criminal activities after
dropping out
• Youths who drop out for other reasons are
less likely to become criminal
• Some dropouts actually decrease delinquent
activity after dropping out
• Should there be compulsory education?
Schools
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Schools with lower delinquency rates have:
Core of motivated students
Nurturing environment
Fair (not arbitrary, not excessive) but firm
rules
• Smaller schools do better than larger ones
(supervision issue)
Schools
• Condition of buildings, etc., not as
predictive as other factors
• Lowering student-teacher ratio helpful to a
limited degree
School prevention programs
• DARE and other substance abuse
prevention programs
• Continuation of school for pregnant teens
• Special programs such as anger
management, conflict resolution, peer
mentors, tutoring, social services, dropout
prevention
• Alternative schools
Prevention
• School resource officers (SROs)
• After school programs
• Life skills programs such as problem
solving, stress management, basic
competencies
Suspension/expulsion
• Problems
• Suspension may be reinforcing, sends a
mixed message (alternative school)
• Suspended student might be inadvertently
rewarded by parent(s)—school has no
control over ensuring that it is punitive
• Suspended/expelled students are likely to be
unsupervised
Suspension/expulsions
• Likely to have an academically detrimental
effect
• Might solve the school’s problem, but create
new problems for the community