Last August in the APA Monitor (1998), there was an article entitled Experts scrambling on school shootings: The recent youth homicides in rural schools represent a violence puzzling to psychologists. In it, there was an expressed fear that the tragedies that have occurred in Jonesboro, Ark., or Springfield, Ore., were not just coincidental anomalies but will continue to occur perhaps with greater frequency. This article, unfortunately, provided a dire prediction considering the recent events in Denver and Canada.

Aggression and violence, however, do not just result in shootings as dramatized on television news programs and talk shows. Shooting deaths have happened only 7 times in the last 18 months (6 in the US and 1 in Canada). But these are only the sensationalized events.

The October 1998 Executive Summary of the National Center for Education Statistics, titled Indicators of School Crime and Safety 1998 presents a very different picture. In 1996, for example, students ages 12 through 18 were victims of about 255,000 incidents of nonfatal serious violent crime at school and about 671,000 incidents away from school. In 1996, 5% of all 12^th graders reported that they had been injured with a weapon such as a knife, gun, or club during the past 12 months while they were at school. In 1996-97, 10% of all public schools reported at least one serious violent incident to a law enforcement representative. Another 47% of public schools reported less serious violent or non-violent crimes, including physical attacks or fights without a weapon. Over the 5 years from 1992 to 1996, teachers were victims of about 316,000 nonfatal crimes a year at school! Statistics also reveal students’ fear of school environments because of violence. Clearly aggression and violence are not low-frequency events. They are, however, the ingredients of more serious and sometimes fatal incidents.

The causes of these events are multiple and varied. Scott Poland in the July 1998 FASP The Florida School Psychologist succinctly presented some interesting points. He reminded us that many of today’s youth do not understand the finality of death. Children today are influenced by the extreme violence that is portrayed on television, in movies and video games. Our society glamorizes violence. In addition to the proliferation of violence in the media, we must also contend with the proliferation of firearms. We must, therefore, reduce the availability of guns for children. In December 1996, the APA published Reducing Violence: A Research Agenda. The causes of violence were presented and included the biobehavioral, socialization, cognitive and situational factors. Regarding prevention, Reducing Violence… called for the early implementation of well-developed programs. While research must continue, we cannot wait for a perfect understanding before we try to develop better prevention and treatment methods.

One program for consideration comes from the Center for Aggression Management (The Center) in Winter Park, Florida. John Byrnes, the President and founder of The Center states "the message that the word ‘violence’ conveys is misleading. It conjures up violent crimes and fatalities." Too often, school officials who have not experienced a shooting in the past year are likely to discount school violence as an issue. Also, when solutions to school violence are considered, there is a tendency to arrive at "Crisis Management." This is a reactive solution not a preventive one. Byrnes clearly states that "with lives at risk, prevention, not merely crisis management must be provided."

Prevention is achieved only when aggression is considered as the root of the problem. Aggression embodies everything from verbal abuse through violent behavior. Aggression, therefore, has parts and if the parts are identified early and appropriate skills are deployed, then a violent incident may be avoided.

With this in mind, Byrnes developed a Paradigm of Prevention.

These skills identify the emergence of aggression, foresee the possibility of conflict, help engage and prevent aggression before it escalates into conflict and becomes an incident.

• Identifying the emergence of aggression

• Foreseeing the possibility of conflict

1. Individuals grain a sense of responsibility and a sense of urgency to respond in an appropriate manner
2. Responsibility and urgency are needed to resolve fears and apprehensions that many students experience, therefore, fail to report threatening situations, thereby overcoming the "snitch code" that states do not tell on friends.

• Engaging and preventing aggression from occurring before it becomes conflict

1. Verbal skills to engage a threatening individual without escalating this the situation into an aggressive incident
2. Knowledge of what to do with threatening behavior and how to communicate to those who need to know

• Conducting a safe escape

1. If all else fails, how to conduct a safe escape for self and others?
2. Human skills to respond to an escalating aggressor and how to safely remove themselves as a target.

The first of these skills is intended to prevent the emergence of aggression and violence, the fourth skill is utilized only when all else fails. The Paradigm of Reacting (intervention, metal detectors, more law enforcement, cameras, gun control, etc.) must shift to a Paradigm of Prevention through the human skills of Aggression Management.

Psychologists can take the lead in the prevention of aggression and violence in our society, not only through research and development, but now through the implementation of a Paradigm of Prevention.

References:

Kaufman, P, Chandler, K., Rand, M. (1998) Executive Summary: Indicators of School Crime and Safety 1998, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, NCES 98-251

Poland, S. (1998). Scott Poland Delivers Expert Testimony: Congressional Testimony on Youth and Violence, The Florida School Psychologist, 24, 16-17.

Scott, Sl (1998). Experts scrambling on school shootings: The recent youth homicides in rural schools represent a violence puzzling to psychologists, APA Monitor, 29

Tomes, H., and Huesmann, L. R. (1996) Reducing Violence: A Research Agenda: A Human Capital Initiative Report, American Psychological Association.

Author:

Robert A. Evans, Ph.D., has been in private practice for over 25 years. His practice, Alternatives: A Center for Caring, Inc., is in Longwood, FL. Dr. Evans also teaches Personality Theory and Consultation for Webster University in their Counseling program, and Children and Adolescent Deviant Behavior and Treatment for the University of Central Florida in their School Psychology program. 

The Center for Aggression Management