Schools and the Problem of Crime

by Mark Rowe

Author: Stephen Boxford

ISBN No: 9781138861497

Review date: 29/03/2024

No of pages: 274

Publisher: Routledge

Publisher URL:
https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138861497

Year of publication: 29/07/2015

Brief:

Schools and the Problem of Crime

price

£30

By Stephen Boxford. Published 2015 by Routledge, paperback, 274 pages, £30. ISBN 9781-138861497.

Why do some young people do crime and not others? Is it their family background (or lack of it)? Or something in them (or lacking)? Or the way the school’s run? These are questions for every parent that wants the best for their children, let alone for teachers. Routledge has reprinted a 2006 book, itself the write-up of a 2001 study of teenagers in Cardiff schools.

Despite media scares over the (infrequent) UK cases of knife and other killings in school, only a few pupils are criminal, but they are behind most of the crime. All the more reason to identify what makes them different and why they are doing it; and whether they are criminal only in school, but in the wider world also. Regrettably Boxford made a snap-shot study and did not follow the children further, who would incidentally be about 30 now.

As for what he found; while in anything we generalise at our peril, it seems that what’s inside the child matters; whether they have self-control, and a sense of shame if they are found out doing wrong (by adults rather than their peers). Substance abuse and being in with the wrong crowd also have their effects. Male pupils are likelier to do crime (vandalism, theft from shops) than females. “Pupils who lead high-risk lifestyles and have weak bonds to society and poorly adjusted dispositions are more likely to offend more frequently in school.” What you might not expect is that those doing crime are also more likely to be victims of crime (or at least they say that they are). This may suggest that the school ‘climate’ or ‘context’ does matter, and certainly the schools differed in how much crime they reportedly had. Are school staff making bonds with children, above all those going off the rails; and failing that, monitoring them? As Boxford suggests, the stakes are high, and political. Are poor children or those from ‘broken’ homes likelier to do crime? Family background is less of an influence, as Boxford suggests, than ‘delinquent school peers’.

That however begs the question of why someone and not others might be drawn to delinquents. Hence some life stories would have been welcome, if only for colour, and so as to tease out any wider social causes of crime and anti-social behaviour, and the opposite. And in any case times have moved on. What of the online world of texting and social media, that has exploded since 2001, creating new pressures on youths, such as sexting; and widespread use of CCTV in schools as a crime prevention or simply a management tool? Sadly, such is the slow pace of academic study and publication, for all we know (and generations of pupils already do know) this research may be old hat.

Contents
Introduction 1 The Cardiff school study 2 The Cardiff school study: research design and methods 3 Offending in schools: key issues 4 Offending in Cardiff’s schools: individual and between-school differences 5 Neighbourhood context 6 Family social position 7 The school context 8 Individual characteristics 9 Lifestyle 10 Between-school differences 11 Key findings and implications

(See also Surveillance Schools by Emmeline Taylor – reviewed at https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/reviews/surveillance-schools/.)

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