School Violence:
Fears Versus Facts,
Dewey G. Cornell,
Erlbaum Associates, 2006, paperback, 254 pages
University of Virginia professor, researcher and nationally recognized exert on gang and youth violence Dewey Cornell has written a short, well annotated, and easy to follow book that belongs on your bookshelf. VJJA members may even want to purchase and share copies with local school administrators. The insight you can gain from the list of ‘fears’ and ‘facts’ could affirm your current thinking and acting or lead to changes that help you to do your job even better.
Cornell, a clinical forensic psychologist and VJJA conference speaker, translates scientific research into language that helps us better address bullying, school violence and myths or misconceptions related to what works. Cornell shares some programs that have been judged failures - Scared Straight, Boot Camp, DARE, psychological profiling of students and the application of ‘zero tolerance’ practices. Based on the facts behind several of the twenty ‘myths,’ we are asked to re-examine how we discipline, who we expel or who we even adjudicate or detain. Despite the lasting effect of sensational press coverage related to the rare act of a school shooting, we are assured that our schools are very safe. After-incident study by the U.S. Secret Service is touted as sound and is now the tool used in prevention training for school safety and security by administrative staff. The ‘threat assessment’ model has been in use since 1999 and may lend itself to some court or intake decision-making. The chapters on bullying are especially good. It is also important to realize that zero tolerance polices are not effective and can easily cause harm.
Rest assured that some of the programs, if properly implemented in your JCC, DH, CSU, local alternative school or other juvenile justice site are both effective and important. Youth crime is not going up, but the national figures on incarceration certainly go up and up. The thousands of research studies (p. 130) of ‘hundreds of different kinds of prevention or rehabilitation approaches’ now show that much of what we do is effective. The annotations on SAMHSA, R. Catalano, D. Olweus, the well known ‘blueprint’ programs (www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/model/overview.html), and the federal Safe and Drug Free Schools and Community Act are potentially helpful as you evaluate what you do each and every day. Perhaps you can get an autographed copy of this book at a future VJJA training conference.
(Eric Assur is employed by the 17th Court Service Unit in Arlington).
