The Lessons Learned From School Violence In America And Ways To Prevent Them

The whole country woke up to deadly shootings which occurred at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Some people may expect bad things to happen in poor, inner city schools but were surprised to see something that violent happen in an affluent, suburban high school. This article will mention some of the crimes that have happened in recent years and what changes schools are making to prevent further killings and shooting to occur in our schools. Some changes are the addition of metal detectors, the removal of a kid’s locker and have only hooks for coats and bags and some decorative shelving where items are all visible, and some other things pertaining to dress codes.

One of the consistent themes that seem to resonate from the kids who cause these violent acts in school is that they were tired of being bullied by other students or that they were outsiders. Up until 1995, school shootings were considered quite rare but unfortunately since then, there have been many that have happened with the most recent one and deadliest one happening at Virginia Tech where one student claimed 32 lives including himself. Many of the shootings have been caused by students that attend the school and are quite familiar with the routine of the school in addition to the layout of the building. There have also been more fatalities prior to that in Washington, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Tennessee and Minnesota to name a few.

After the attacks, many students told authorities that they had witnessed the student say what they were going to do but most of the times, the kids never reported it to staff thinking that the student didn’t really mean it. Now students are taught that if anyone ever says they will perform a violent act, to tell school officials or the police right away. Looking back on many crimes, there were absolute signs that many of these students premediated these shootings in advance and there was evidence that they did not keep it silent. Teachers, counselors are now also taught to look for signs of students that feel isolated or that are being teased or bullied with many schools creating a zero tolerance policy for that kind of behavior towards another classmate.

To stop students from bringing in weapons or explosives to the school, many high schools have some drastic changes to the building. One way is to have metal detectors placed at the main entrance where all of the kids can only enter the building that way. Installing the detectors have helped to prevent students from bringing weapons inside the school building.

Some schools are eliminating lockers|getting rid of student lockers} from buildings. Many new schools built in Colorado were made without lockers to stop kids from concealing anything dangerous. Also, long, trench coat style apparel has been banned from some schools as something a person can hide weapons under as well.