Compile the Completed Policy Analysis
Develop a Presentation to Stakeholders Validating the Need for the Program or Policy.
Schools’ violence Policy
CJ-7105 V1: Public Policy & Criminal Justice
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Policy purpose
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The purpose of this policy is to acknowledge the fact that violence in schools has increased. For this reason, measures need to be identified; the school can adopt that.
To help maintain a working and learning environment that is free from disruptive behavior and violence.
Violence in schools policy can be incorporated in schools using the following steps.
Developing policies that condemn violence, implementing the formulated policies or programs.
Adoption of violence prevention programs and creating an action-guiding framework for prevention and violence response in schools.
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This policy focuses on promoting healthy relationships among students and school community members and generating an environment that is physically and psychologically safe. I firmly believe the safety of students should be given priority. For this reason, students should be protected from physical or emotional harm during any school activity (Volungis & Goodman, 2017).
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Policy implementation
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The school board will evaluate and approve the proposed policy to address and prevent violence in the school.
The administration and the school board will inform knowledge of the students and staff members every year on procedures and policies related to violence and weapons prevention.
The school administration will promptly investigate both formal and informal complaints and acts of violence and immediately take appropriate disciplinary actions against any staff member or student victim of a policy violation.
The school board will examine and approve policies to prevent and address violence in our schools.
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Policy implementation
Any student who behaves violently will be immediately ejected from the classroom for a given period deemed fit by the school principal, in consultation with respective teachers following the students' discipline policy.
Legal procedures will be developed to refer victims of a policy violation or those who violate the weapons policy to the agency of local enforcement.
According to the safeguard procedures, students who are disabled may be expelled for behaviors not related to their disabilities.
The school policy consequences will be imposed on any learner or non-student who is found in possession of a weapon, uses any form of a weapon while in school locality.
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Policy implementation involves setting up specific rules and regulations and enforcing them to the targeted parties such as the students’ body, the teaching staff, and any other employee within the school's confines with the sole aim of curbing or preventing violence in school environs.
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Methods of school-violence prevention
The prevention of violence is divided into three classes, namely:
1) Measures related to the management of schools, such as punishment and discipline-related matters.
2) Environmental modification-related measures. For example, videos, security guards, cameras, and uniforms.
3) Curriculum and educational-based measures, for instance program of gang prevention and conflict-resolution (Volungis & Goodman, 2017).
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Among these solutions, it is unfortunate to note that there is no on-size-fit it all answer for violence prevention.
There is no single program that can be sure to resolve violence.
There is no silver bullet, and the ideal violence policy varies from one school to another.
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Ideal policy prevention for school violence
If all schools were the same in terms of demographic neighborhood, crime rates within the neighboring community, and similar budgetary burden. With a similarly committed staff, there could be room to feel safe advocating for a policy with a denominator common for all schools.
But unfortunately, schools are known to be self-evidently not similar.
For this reason, the ideal prevention policy for school violence is to encourage every school to try and experiment and discover what works in their circumstance.
Most interventions for anti-violence have either sparse or mixed evidence of effectiveness.
Numerous programs have not been correctly monitored, so few data results for effective programs exist.
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Following the variations of various schools structure in terms of crime rate, the burden of school budgets, and the rest of the differences, no school violence control or prevention method can be relied on as being most effective.
For this reason, schools are advised to keep on experimenting with every technique and hopefully defines what can work in their specific circumstances.
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Benefits of violence policy in schools
Numerous benefits characterize the implementation of violence prevention in schools. They include;
1. School-based prevention of violence programs provide learners and school staff members with violence-based information.
2. It changes how students and school community staff thinks and feelings about violence.
3. It escalates emotional and interpersonal skills such as problem-solving, management of conflict, empathy, and communication.
4. It effectively reduces violent behavior among students regardless of their racial background, race, crime rate, and socioeconomic status.
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Certain benefits can be harnessed and enjoyed by schools if the school maintains an environment free of violence, such as taming down the violent behavior among the students and the school staff.
Furthermore, violence policy in schools built perfect rational behaviors among students and school employees.
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Benefits of violence policy in schools
Furthermore, evidence reveals that specific policies or programs have been thought to reduce alcohol, delinquency, and substance abuse among students.
The evidence reveals that specific programs have been associated with reductions in delinquency, alcohol, and substance abuse.
It has also indicated improvements in academic performance (Brants &Aerial, 2020).
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Additionally, schools' policy of violence helps wean students from destructive behaviors such as being hooked onto drugs such as alcohol and various substance abuse.
A student who is violently free has higher chances of doing exemplary academic work.
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Action guiding framework for prevention and violence response.
1. Developing advocacy and leadership skills.
The critical leadership skills include:
Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
The ability to collaborate with stakeholders and have different opinions.
The adaptability of changing and emerging needs.
Remaining focused on outcomes.
They help other students look for and share solutions for innovation (Kaufman et al., 2019).
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The framework for preventing violence and, by extension, response to violence calls for advocacy developments and building leadership skills among the school going students.
For significant growth and imparting such skills toward students, the essential leadership skills should be highlighted as captured in the slide.
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Action guiding framework for prevention and violence response.
2. Creating a culture and awareness in the school community that does not sound intolerant to violence.
Organizing formal events during the launching of policies or programs can be a typical mechanism of raising awareness in school fraternity.
Besides, it helps teach a sense of responsibility among teaching staff, students, parents, and the surrounding community.
This way can be done by inviting respectable members of the community and creating a school-community. Everybody feels safe, respected, and valued and in an environment where violence is intolerable.
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Management of violence in schools involves exhaustion of various mechanisms. It is thought that creating a culture that is intolerant to influence by all standards can be very helpful in taming down school violence.
Besides, it impacts the sense of responsibility among the students.
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Action guiding framework for prevention and violence response.
3. Set up coordinating team in the school to implement and monitor violence prevention program adopted.
4. Strengthen capacity of the school coordinating team such as helping them to know the common types of violence, the risk factors for violence and the evidence of the likely effective violence prevention program.
5. Generate school policy that strongly condemns school violence and implement fairly to all students.
6. Develop plan of action focused on achieving targets an visions as outlined in the policy (Kaufman et al., 2019).
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In addition to developing leadership, advocacy activities, and creating a culture that is not tolerated school violence.
The above points are also an essential part of the guiding framework for violence response and prevention actions.
They include having a team that implements and monitors violence prevention policy put in place, strengthens the school for effective violence prevention and response, formulates school policies that strongly discourage any form of violent action in school environs, and develops an action plan for achieving visions and targets.
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References
Volungis, A. M., & Goodman, K. (2017). School violence prevention: Teachers establishing relationships with students using counseling strategies. Sage open, 7(1), 2158244017700460.
Brants, H. S., & Ariel, B. (2020). Evidence Map of School-Based Violence Prevention Programs in Israel. International Criminal Justice Review, 1057567720967074.
Kaufman, M. R., Williams, A. M., Grilo, G., Marea, C. X., Fenway, F. W., Gebretsadik, L. A., & Yedenekal, S. A. (2019). “We are responsible for the violence, and prevention is up to us”: a qualitative study of perceived risk factors for gender-based violence among Ethiopian university students. BMC women's health, 19(1), 1-10.
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