Special Theme Issue

• Date: 01 December 2007
• Published date: 01 December 2007
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016807311668
• Author: Richard Lawrence
• Subject Matter: Articles

Criminal Justice Review
Volume 32 Number 4
December 2007 337-338
© 2007 Georgia State University
Special Theme Issue
Research Foundation, Inc.
10.1177/0734016807311668
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School Crime and Juvenile Justice
http://online.sagepub.com
The topic of school crime is a recent development in the criminology and criminal justice
literature. Lawmakers, policymakers, and juvenile justice officials have emphasized
the importance of school crime and safety issues only in the past 10 to 15 years. A number
of violent school shooting incidents in the past several years changed that. The mass media
attention and responses of state and federal education and justice officials have stimulated
more research and writing on the topic. Annual statistical reports now provide evidence
contrary to media reports and public perceptions that the number of assaults, injuries, and
deaths at schools has not significantly increased in the past 10 years. Reports of criminal
justice officials and results of victim surveys, on the other hand, confirm that crime and
delinquency in schools is more serious than originally believed. Most schools encounter
cases of bullying, assaults, and theft among students; possession of drugs and weapons; and
students and teachers negatively affected by fear and an unsafe environment that is not
conducive to learning. Increased attention on school crime and safety has led to a significant
increase in research, funding, and resources to better understand the problem and to develop
and implement school violence prevention and safe school initiatives.
The study of school crime is important for another reason. Studying crime in schools can
help us better understand crime in communities. The school is a variable in many theories of
delinquency, and has close ties with criminology and criminal justice. First, school experi-
ences help explain crime causation; second, schools are locations of juvenile crime and where
the juvenile justice process often begins; and...