School Crime as a Controversial Public Issue essay

Crime is a complex and controversial social issue. School crime is a especially threatening as it deals with future generation. “In 1999”“2000, 20 % of all public schools experienced one or more serious violent crimes such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault. Seventy one percent of public schools reported violent incidents and 46 % reported thefts” (Capozzoli, p.79, 2000).

Government and social organizations are concerned with the problem of teenage alcohol drinking. Specialists detect the general growth of the heavy or light drinkers among the teenagers between 11 and 15 years. These results were achieved by the British Medial Association and published the report called “Alcohol and Young People”. These results are so frightening because teenage alcoholism or even alcohol consuming can become a very dangerous problem for the society. Statistics shows that not only the number of teenagers of 11-15 years old who consume alcohol have increased but also that the amounts of the alcohol they drink became bigger. The results also show that by the age of 13 more than half of teenagers consume alcohol drinks either regularly or from time to time. Specialists call several possible reasons of teenage alcoholism but most of them can be divided into two major categories ”“ internal and external. Internal reasons appear inside the person and in this case teenager starts drinking to get rid of some negative feelings, such as despair, depression, grief, anger, frustration, etc. These cases very often copy the behaviour of parents or close surrounding when children see that problems are resolved with the help of an alcohol. Another group of reasons called external includes the pressure from the surrounding, TV advertising, social norms and standards, etc. All these factors include external active or passive pressure on the teenager.

Crime is a vice of contemporary society and it becomes especially threatening when we speak about school crime.

Schools, which aim to teach children not only basic knowledge on different subjects but also give them moral and ethical values and behavioral patterns, become the places where children meet violence and crime. From early years children meet violence at schools and this reflects social attitude toward human life. During the lessons children are taught to live in love and agreement with other people, but as soon as lesson is over children see another pattern of behavior and voluntary or involuntary follow it. Teenagers drink to get rid of their problems or to increase their popularity and to get a higher social status in some social group. For teenagers, whose physics is very easy to influence very often drinking becomes the way to show their new social statues of “adults”.



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