FAQ about School Safety, Gangs

National School Safety and Security Services frequently receives questions regarding all aspects of school security, gangs, and associated juvenile crime issues.

WHAT DO SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND OTHER INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS WANT TO KNOW ABOUT SCHOOL SECURITY AND GANGS?

Some of the most common questions include:

What are the major threats to school security?

School security threats and risks vary school to school and from one point in time to the next.

Our experience shows that increased aggressive youth behavior, drugs, weapons, gangs, and threats from outside of the school top the list of concerns of most educators.

However, we also stress the idea of "New Times, New Crimes". Technology, for example, has created new problems for educators. Current growing threats include computer-related offenses, bombs, and others regularly covered in our training programs.

Do we know what can influence children to behave violently?  What about all of these threats?  Are there warning signs?

Parents, school officials, law enforcement, and other youth-service providers should be aware of some of the factors influencing our children.  See our Early Warning Signs of Youth Violence page for more details.   

We keep hearing that crime is down in many cities, so why are concerns about school security going up? What is the real story about school crime data?

The reality is that there is NO CONSISTENT collection of data on crimes in secondary and elementary schools across the nation!  Although research efforts are unquestionably needed and applauded, the public, the media, and our policy-makers must realize that surveys and studies are limited in their scope and depth.  Developing laws, policies, programs, and other important decisions based solely on one or two limited surveys is quite risky.

Unfortunately, this problem is compounded by the non-reporting and underreporting of school-based crimes to law enforcement officials.  School security professionals nationwide agree that many crimes in schools go unreported to police, again leaving with us unreliable data for developing prevention and intervention programs. Reasons for the underreporting of crimes by school officials are both unintentional (such as those resulting from failures to train school personnel on distinguishing crimes from non-criminal, administrative disruptive behaviors) and intentional (such as those motivated by denial, fear of adverse publicity, and other political factors in school environments and the community - issues discussed in detail in The "Politricks" of School Security, chapter 2 of our book, Practical School Security: Basic Guidelines for Safe and Secure Schools).

Recent reports of crime declines in many cities has added to the confusion and, in many cases, has created a false sense of security about school crime and overall juvenile crime in the community.  School and community officials need to understand that changing demographics (such as those associated with the size of our juvenile population), changes in data collection mechanisms and reporting, and - of course - politics, will all influence crime and other data.  While we do NOT wish to be alarmists, we must also not operate with a false sense of security by taking proactive school security and other juvenile crime prevention initiatives off of the priority focus in education, criminal justice, and related fields.

So how do we use - or not use - all of the data?

The bottom line is that, while broad surveys and national studies are needed to help us better examine school violence and security concerns, caution must be taken in using limited data findings as a sole-source for making important decisions.  However, data collected from a specific school, community, or target population is more narrowly focused and more helpful for use in designing specific policies and programs for that particular school, community, or population.  Even then, check the data collection mechanism, sources, etc. for possible flaws. (Colleges and universities are great sources for support in professionally designing, collecting, and evaluating data for specific projects.)

What are some major barriers to effective school security?

A few of the most common obstacles detected in our assessments include:

Inadequate and inconsistent staff training

Failure to have school security assessed by security professionals

Tendency to have no crisis preparedness guidelines or to have inadequate testing and updates of guidelines that do exist

Absence of a balanced approach to school safety, i.e., focusing ONLY on prevention-oriented curriculum, ONLY on intervention services, or ONLY on enforcement/security measures instead of balance of the three components

Politics, including denial and image concerns that lead to inconsistent crime reporting, inaccurate data, and inappropriate responses

How can we improve our school security?

There are many practical, cost-effective measures that can be employed to reduce school safety risks. Some preliminary steps include:

Train ALL staff, including support personnel such as secretaries, custodians, bus drivers, school nurses, cafeteria staff, and security personnel, on school security trends and strategies

Proactively and professionally assess school security and implement the recommendations from these assessments

Create, test, revise, and train all staff on crisis preparedness guidelines

Improve physical security measures such as access control (and much more!)

Implement specific strategies for improving the security component of safety-related plans and the overall school climate while making sure that your plan has a balance among prevention, intervention, and security components

Coordinate security plans with law enforcement and other key members of the school community

Why do kids join gangs?

Factors motivating kids to join gangs vary individual to individual. A multitude of social and economic reasons can be involved. Power, status, security, friendship, family substitute, economic profit, substance abuse influences, and numerous other factors can influence kids to join gangs.  Gang members also cross all socio-economic backgrounds and boundaries regardless of age, sex, race, economic status, and academic achievement.  

Each case must be evaluated on an individual basis, thus the importance of knowing what to look for and how to intervene early before the problem becomes entrenched!

What are signs of a gang presence in my school or community?

Typically, people look for graffiti or bandannas as the main indicators of a gang presence.  However, gang indicators can be quite subtle, particularly as awareness increases among adults. Identifiers may include:

Graffiti:  Unusual signs, symbols, or writing on walls, notebooks, etc.

"Colors":  Obvious or subtle colors of clothing, a particular clothing brand, jewelry, or haircuts (But not necessarily the traditional perception of colors as only bandannas)  

Tattoos:   Symbols on arms, chest, or elsewhere on the body

"Lit" (gang literature):  Gang signs, symbols, poems, prayers, procedures, etc. in notebooks or other documents

Initiations:  Suspicious bruises, wounds, or injuries resulting from a "jumping in" type initiation

Handsigns:  Unusual hand signals or handshakes

Behavior:  Sudden changes in behavior or secret meetings

and many, many other methods. One or several of these identifiers may indicate gang affiliation.  It is important to remember, however, that identifiers help recognize gang affiliation, but a focus on behavior is especially important.

Educators, law enforcement, parents, and other youth-service providers need regular training and updates to monitor the changing nature of gang identifiers and - most important - behavior.

How much influence do gangs have in schools and should we be concerned?                            
             
Schools do not necessarily create gangs, but they can contribute to their growth if they do not address the gang presence or potential presence in the early stages of development.  National School Safety and Security Services has many specific examples in its training programs of how gangs operate in schools by selling drugs, assaulting students and staff, vandalism of school property, conducting gang initiations in school and on school grounds, and even turning in homework written in gang graffiti!  

Gangs thrive on anonymity, denial, and lack of awareness by school personnel. The gang member whose notebook graffiti goes unaddressed today may likely be involved in initiations, assaults, and drug sales in school in the near future. School officials can prevent such occurrences - or at least reduce the risks and impact of those which do occur - by training their staff on gang identification, behavior, prevention and intervention strategies, and related school security issues.