13.5.4: Violence

13.5.4: Violence 

The man stalked the high school’s hallways. He pressed his ear against a door, trying to determine if students were in the classroom. Hearing nothing, he moved silently to another classroom and did the same thing. Going from one locked door to another, he proceeded down the length of the entire hallway. Students were behind each door, but they remained absolutely quiet. Still hearing nothing, the man smiled. The man smiled? Yes, because he was not a sociopath seeking random victims. This was a teacher checking how well the school was performing in a lockdown drill. In some schools, the safety of students and teachers is so precarious that armed guards, metal detectors, and drug-sniffing dogs are permanent fixtures. In an era of bomb threats and armed sociopaths, some states require lockdown drills: Teachers quickly lock their classrooms and pull down the shades or blinds on the windows. The students are told to remain absolutely silent, while a school official wanders the halls, like an armed intruder, listening for the slightest sound that would indicate that someone is in a classroom. Students are even warned that the glow of their cell phones could make them targets (Berne 2019). Although hope springs eternal in the human breast, it is unlikely that we will return to a time when school shootings are unknown. But certainly a good teaching–learning environment starts with safety. How much worse are school shootings getting? The answer—in the following Thinking Critically about Social Life—might surprise you. Thinking Critically about Social Life School Shootings: Exploding a Myth The media sprinkle their reports of school shootings with such dramatic phrases as “alarming proportions,” “outbreak of violence,” and “out of control.” They give us the impression that dangerous people walk our hallways, ready to spray students with gunfire. Parents used to consider schools safe havens, but no longer. Those naïve thoughts have been shattered by the media accounts of bullets ripping through our schools, children hovering in fear, and little bloody bodies strewn across classroom floors. Have our schools really become war zones, as the mass media would have us believe? Shootings such as those at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and the Mary Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, make us think so, but we need to probe deeper than screaming headlines and startling images. This frame from a surveillance camera at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, shows Eric Harris, on the left, and Dylan Klebold, on the right, as they search for victims. Credit: Kevin Moloney/Hulton Archive/Jefferson County Sheriff's Department/Getty Images When we do, we find that the media’s sensationalism has created a myth. Contrary to “what everyone knows,” there is no trend toward greater school violence. In fact, we find just the opposite—the trend is toward greater safety at school. Despite the dramatic school shootings that make the headlines, as you can see from 

Table 13.1, deaths at schools are decreasing. 

Because school homicides are high one year and low another, to see trends we need to average them out. Here is where we get the surprising results. The average number of annual murders in U.S. schools for 1992 to 2000 is 29. For 2000–2010, it is 20.4, a drop of 29 percent. Then the most recent average, based on data for 2010 to 2016, drops again to 17.8. Using estimates for later years, incomplete data but that include the horrendous Parkland, Florida, death toll, and others, the average comes to 19.6. Table 13.1 Exploding a Myth: Murders at U.S. Schools1 Homicides of students ages 5-18 at U.S. elementary or secondary schools, including victims who were “on the way to or from regular sessions at school” or while they were “attending or traveling to or from an official school-sponsored event.” These are the latest totals available in the source. 1Homicides of students ages 5–18 at U.S. elementary or secondary schools, including victims who were “on the way to or from regular sessions at school” or while they were “attending or traveling to or from an official school-sponsored event.” *Author’s estimates based on news reports. Awaiting official counts. Sources: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). “Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2018,” May 2019, Centers for Disease Control (CDC). “Characteristics of School-Associated Youth Homicides,” 2019k.

Homicides of students ages 5–18 at U.S. elementary or secondary schools, including victims who were “on the way to or from regular sessions at school” or while they were “attending or traveling to or from an official school-sponsored event.” *Author’s estimates based on news reports. Awaiting official counts. Sources: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). “Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2018,” May 2019, Centers for Disease Control (CDC). “Characteristics of School-Associated Youth Homicides,” 2019k. I don’t think you’ve seen any screaming headlines proclaiming this decrease in school killings, right? Violent deaths at school are a serious problem. Even one student being wounded or killed is too many. But contrary to the impression fostered by the media, school deaths have dropped. Headlines like “No Shootings This Month!” or “Schools Safer Than Ever!” simply don’t get much attention—nor bring in much advertising money. Can you see why we need sociology? Sociologists can search behind the headlines to quietly, dispassionately do research that helps us better understand the events that shape our lives. The first requirement for solving any problem is accurate data. How can we create solutions based on hysteria? The information presented here may not make for sensational headlines, but it does serve to explode one of the myths that the media have created. For Your Consideration → Why do you think so many people think that school shootings are worse now than in the past? → Why are people’s ideas often based more on headlines than on facts? Hearing from the Author: School Shootings Listen to the Audio