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Laws
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Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States
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Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States

A special issue of Laws (ISSN 2075-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 July 2023) | Viewed by 10369

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Gordon Crews

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville, TX 78539, USA
Interests: K-12 school violence; juvenile delinquency and violence; K-12 school safety; law enforcement and correctional policy and procedures

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Laws is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal focusing on legal systems, theory, and institutions, published bimonthly online by MDPI. The journal is planning to present a Special Issue: Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States and is inviting article submissions. This Special Issue is interested in articles that address the myriad complex issues surrounding K-12 school disturbance and violence in the United States.

Most researchers insist on combining all types of school shootings/violence incidents into one type of act and therefore one type of actor. This could not be further from the truth when examining K-12 school violence in the United States. Public mass shootings, university shootings, international shootings, and K-12 school shootings differ in a variety of ways. They have divergent catalysts, motivations, types of occurrence, and offenders. This Special Issue seeks to explore those differences.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

  • Issues pertaining to proper response by the US Criminal Justice System to K-12 school safety
  • Issues pertaining to student upon teacher violence and teacher upon student violence
  • Issues pertaining to the growing number of shootings committed by children in schools
  • Legal issues pertaining to juvenile crime prevention and service in a K-12 environment
  • Legal issues pertaining to parental responsibility in dealing with their children in K-12 schools
  • Legal issues pertaining to preventing crimes against children and by children
  • Motivations underlying acts of mistreatment, crime, and violence toward children
  • Potential causes of juvenile delinquency and violence in schools
  • Protecting children from crime and violence in schools
  • Risk assessment measures, e.g., instruments that may be used to measure offending risk
  • Risk assessment measures, e.g., instruments that may be used to measure victimization risk
  • Issues surrounding K-12 school disturbance and violence
  • Shifting definitions of what constitutes “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”
  • The general public’s understanding of crime and violence directed at children
  • The news media’s representation of issues surrounding crime & violence against and by children

Please consider submitting an article for review.

Prof. Dr. Gordon Crews
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Laws is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • K-12 school violence
  • juvenile delinquency and violence
  • K-12 school safety
  • law enforcement and correctional policy
  • procedures relating to K-12 school violence
  • school violence perpetrators

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 259 KiB  
Article
Managing Active Shooter Events in Schools: An Introduction to Emergency Management
by Selina E. M. Kerr
Laws 2024, 13(4), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws13040042 - 2 Jul 2024
Viewed by 868
Abstract
Active shooter events involving an armed perpetrator(s) on campus are one of the main risks facing K-12 schools. Defined as planning for and responding to emergency situations, emergency or crisis management allows for an ‘acceptable’ level of risk to be achieved. This paper [...] Read more.
Active shooter events involving an armed perpetrator(s) on campus are one of the main risks facing K-12 schools. Defined as planning for and responding to emergency situations, emergency or crisis management allows for an ‘acceptable’ level of risk to be achieved. This paper will go through the four principles of emergency management, detailing what each stage involves and how it can reduce risk. The first of these is mitigation, which prevents crises occurring in the first place. Effective risk and threat assessment are pertinent to this stage. Secondly, there is preparedness, which enhances the capacity of an organization to respond to various incidents. This involves drafting emergency management plans and practicing these to ensure readiness to respond. The next principle is responding to a crisis, denoting the actions taken during and immediately after a crisis, should one transpire. The final facet of emergency management planning is recovery, referring to the short-to-long-term phase of restoring a community following an incident. This paper will share insights obtained from a recent event, The Briefings, held by the I Love U Guys foundation, one of the leading school safety organizations in the United States. Specifically, the paper will focus on a possible training approach to active shooter events and other emergencies, the organization’s emergency management framework called the ‘Standard Response Protocol’. Additionally, this paper will incorporate relevant scholarly readings in order to provide an introduction to the topic of emergency management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States)
22 pages, 392 KiB  
Article
The Covenant School Shooting: Media Coverage and Backlash against the Transgender Community
by Daisy Ball and James Suleyman
Laws 2023, 12(6), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws12060088 - 28 Nov 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4344
Abstract
On 27 March 2023, Aiden Hale broke into the Covenant School, a private Christian academy in Nashville, TN, and killed three students and three staff members. Hale, a former student at the school, was transgender. Although assigned female at birth, Hale identified as [...] Read more.
On 27 March 2023, Aiden Hale broke into the Covenant School, a private Christian academy in Nashville, TN, and killed three students and three staff members. Hale, a former student at the school, was transgender. Although assigned female at birth, Hale identified as male, asked to be called by a male name, and used he/him pronouns. In the aftermath of the shooting, a newfound wave of anti-trans rhetoric soared, once again putting members of the transgender community in harm’s way. In this article, we review the details of the Covenant School shooting and consider them in the context of the anti-trans movement in the United States, a movement that has escalated as transgender people have become more visible and more vocal in society. We then present findings from an extensive content analysis of newspaper coverage in the two weeks following the shooting (27 March–10 April). In so doing, we add to the literature on K-12 school shootings and gender studies, specifically stigma towards the transgender community. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States)
21 pages, 354 KiB  
Article
A Convergence of Violence: Structural Violence Experiences of K–12, Black, Disabled Males across Multiple Systems
by Gayitri Kavita Indar, Christine Sharon Barrow and Warren E. Whitaker
Laws 2023, 12(5), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws12050080 - 20 Sep 2023
Viewed by 2057
Abstract
In American schools, conversations about violence prioritize direct violence, while indirect violence is virtually ignored. This current emphasis overlooks the structural violence deeply embedded in America’s social, political, and economic institutions, which were intentionally designed to exclude, and position some groups to experience [...] Read more.
In American schools, conversations about violence prioritize direct violence, while indirect violence is virtually ignored. This current emphasis overlooks the structural violence deeply embedded in America’s social, political, and economic institutions, which were intentionally designed to exclude, and position some groups to experience disproportionate levels of poverty, exploitation, and persecution. To understand the mechanisms of structural violence, the concepts of structural violence and total institutions, the tenets of Disability Critical Race Theory can be used as an analytical lens. This retrospective comparative case study does so by exploring similarities in the lived experiences of Black, Emotionally Disturbed males across metropolitan special education, juvenile justice, and medical systems. The findings demonstrate a “convergence of violence” in America’s juvenile justice, medical, and special education systems, collectively pushing K–12-aged participants into carceral sites, denying them voice and choice, and providing them with performative healthcare. Our study recommends that institutions designed to serve K–12-aged learners use cross-sector collaborations to meet holistic learner needs and mitigate pressures to engage in direct violence. Specifically, we offer the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model as a national approach to increase access to healthcare providers, social services, and mental health services, as well as engaging community stakeholders critical to understanding the cultural context of learners’ lived experiences. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States)
13 pages, 976 KiB  
Article
An Examination of the Role of Perpetrator’s Relationship to Overall School Shooting Casualties
by Justin J. Joseph and Christoper W. Purser
Laws 2023, 12(4), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws12040073 - 18 Aug 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2029
Abstract
High-profile school shootings in recent years have fueled fear and uncertainty among stakeholders (e.g., parents, teachers, and students) and the public debate on gun control legislation nationwide. These fears are reflected in the public discourse and the academic community, which focuses their investigation [...] Read more.
High-profile school shootings in recent years have fueled fear and uncertainty among stakeholders (e.g., parents, teachers, and students) and the public debate on gun control legislation nationwide. These fears are reflected in the public discourse and the academic community, which focuses their investigation on rampage school shootings. To address this gap in the empirical literature, the current study’s goal is twofold: (1) to contribute to the descriptive understanding of school shooting characteristics; and (2) address the gaps in the extant literature through examining the perpetrators relationship with the school on the total number of victims during a school shooting incident. Secondary data analysis was performed on the K-12 School Shooting database (K-12 SSDB). A negative binomial and descriptive analysis were conducted on the K-12 School Shooting database, established by the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) in 2018, which has been recently updated to reflect recent incidents. The findings and policy implications of the findings are discussed in detail in the manuscript. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Issues in K-12 School Violence in the United States)
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