Statement of Alfred S Regnery, Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice on January 25, 1984

• NCJ Number: 94479
• Author(s): A S Regnery
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 13 pages
• Corporate Author: US Dept of Justice
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Requiring students to conform with a set of rules that is consistently and fairly enforced can not only reduce crime in the schools but also in the surrounding community.

Abstract

As recently as 1983, in a teacher survey by the National Education Association, nearly half the respondents reported that student misbehavior interfered with teaching to a 'moderate or great extent.' The Cabinet Council on Human Resources Working Group on School Violence and Discipline Report to the President indicates that minority students are substantially more likely to be the victims of school crime than are nonminority students. Students in predominantly minority schools are twice as likely to be victims of serious crimes than students in predominantly white schools. Teachers in these schools are five times more likely to be victims of attacks requiring medical treatment and three times more likely to be robbed than are teachers in predominantly white schools. The Cabinet Council Report to the President on School Discipline also indicates that disorder in the schools has a direct impact on educational quality. The Excellence in Education Commission found that improved discipline is a prerequisite for improving the Nation's schools, and a bipartisan Merit Pay Task Force of the U.S. House of Representatives cited improved discipline as essential to upgrading the quality of teachers and teaching. In a case study, the George Washington Preparatory High School in the Watts section of Los Angeles, a predominantly black school, the imposition of a strict discipline code, requiring both students and parents to sign an agreement to abide by it, resulted in a 40 percent reduction in suspensions over 2 years and a 50 percent reduction in truancy. With the decrease in truancy, crime in the school neighborhood also decreased. The Cabinet Council Report recommended the establishment of a National School Safety Center. The functions of the Center are listed.