In A Time Of Violence Essay, Research Paper

In A Time of Violence

Everywhere we look we see some sort of violence, if it’s not ourselves committing the violence, someone around us is. It is as though it never fails, on television it is not considered a “good” show unless there is some sort of shoot ‘em up seen on every show. There is not an easy solution to stopping the violence that occurs each day. Instead it will take a nation wide contribution to even begin to control violence. I hope to show how violence is caused, who commits violence, who are the victims of violence, where violence occurs, and most importantly how to prevent violence, and even stop it before it starts.

Two kids walk in to a school carrying enough guns and ammo to take out an entire community. The two kids then storm through the school shooting at everyone who appears to be either an athlete or a race other than white. The first question that came into my head was “What would possess someone to do this to their peers, most of which did nothing to them personally?” That question is probably never going to be answered. We have got a little bit of a clue as to what they were thinking thanks to information found in the houses of the kids who committed these crimes. Also we have gotten information from the friends of the monsters who could do this. We know the fact that it was Adolf Hitler’s birthday has a bit to do with the reasoning behind it. We also know that the kids were often times picked on by the other students. Although these kids were made fun of and even singled out as “loners”, that is no reason for someone to commit such a devilish crime. The first thing we must do is to figure out how such kids were able to find the means to do this. I found the information I needed in an article by Michelle Koidin. Koidin discusses how the kids were able to obtain the guns. Colorado police know that Robyn Anderson, Klebold’s girlfriend purchases three of the weapons used in the shooting. Which is not illegal by Colorado law. In Colorado someone eighteen years of age, and no felonies on his or her record can furnish minors with rifles or shotguns,(Koiden,A5). Also Mark Manes, 22 was arrested Monday on suspicions of providing a hand gun to a minor,(Koidin,A5). Although this is the worst case of school violence in our history it is also evident that teens and the general public are not the only people committing violence.

In Indonesia soldiers opened fire on villagers in a northern province, killing at least 19 people and injuring scores more,(Daily Interlake,A9).

“The violence in Aceh province broke out after hundred of troops

converged on the village of Pulo Rungkom to demand that residents

release a soldier who had been abducted over the weekend.”

(Daily Interlake,A9)

You may ask yourself, “Why did the soldiers do this?” They did this because the civilians felt that they had been treated unjustly by the Indonesian army, and they felt that the only way to get the Indonesian government to recognize what was going on, was to use extreme actions. This just happened to be the first thing for the people to be able to do. That is just on example of how violence is used to get an answer to a problem. Another example of this occurred right here in Montana. The story goes that allegedly four males had shot several times into a house in Wolf Creek, two of the men then fled to Great Falls where they were then arrested. The two other men where arrested in Butte. It is still unknown why the men did this to the home in Wolf Creek.

Violence often times comes in many different ways. One doesn’t need to physically harm somebody in order to commit an act of violence, as we found out here in our own Flathead High School. Due to the Littleton, Colorado incident a student from our school decided to follow the trend that most of the nation followed. The alarms went off just as I was pulling into the main parking lot just before the first period bell. The alarm was a fire alarm so naturally all of the students left the building where we then crossed the street like were told to do during practice fire alarms. Soon after everyone had exited the school word began to float around that their had actually been a bomb threat on the school. We were then asked to go to the Elrod School playground. When we arrived at the playground many students began to ask questions, but not many teachers had any answers that could help. So we were forced to stay their until the bomb squad was finished checking the school, which surprisingly took only an hour. But for many students like myself I did not believe the school could have been checked completely in just one hour. So I opted to go home. Later that day we discovered that the threat was called in from inside the school, (FHS Arrow, pg. 1). A couple of days later the High School Newspaper surveyed some of the students. The first question asked if ‘The person would report a student who talked about shooting other students.” That question came back that 88% would report it. The next question asked if “The person would report a friend who talked about shooting someone?” That question came back only 69% would report it. The next question asked was if “This person would report it if a person brought a handgun to school?” That came back an astounding 94%. “The next question asked was if “This person would report a friend that brought a hand gun to school?” Unfortunately this only came back at a balmy 62%. The final question asked was if “This person thought that something like the Littleton, Colorado massacre could happen here?” The results turned out that all people asked believed that something like that could happen here. (See next page graphs about FHS Littleton Shooting Reaction Survey).

Before we can help prevent or even eventually stop most acts of violence we must first determine what causes violence, who commits acts of violence, who is targeted for violence, and where violence is committed. Many doctors, and scientists believe that some people are just born violent and that they cannot control their violence. They believe that behind the forehead is the part of the brain that controls anger as well as the desire to commit violence called the Medulla Oblongata, (Manning, net). These same scientists have been developing drugs that can help stop the urges to commit violence. Many other attempts have been tried but none have been able to stop these outbursts.

Social involvement also contributes to the violence that some kids commit. There are many different things that kids do socially to influence and encourage acts of violence. One of the main things that greatly increases the urge to commit acts of violence is drinking, (No Author, net). To add to the teen violence problem that is contributed to by under age drinking is the fact that alcohol is the drug of choice today for teens, (No Author, net). Which means that kids not only commit acts of violence, and drink alcoholic beverages but that combining the two effects causes them to react more violently to problems that normally wouldn’t be a problem. The same situation has been noted in teenage drug use, (No Author, net). Another problem with teen violence is the fact that violence is more socially excepted today than just ten years back. Because of this a logical reason is not needed for people to commit acts of violence, (No Author, net). In fact when a fight occurs students are more likely to encourage violence rather than try to stop it, (No Author, net). Because of this violence has not only increased in the amount of violence, but the violence has become more than a fist fight, in fact a fight today is more likely to be settled with some kind of weapon rather than a fist, (No Author, net). Luckily the vast majority of youth’s do not commit acts of violence or crime. Actually their is a rule known as the 80-15-5 rule, this states that eighty percent of the student population rarely even break the rules, fifteen percent break the rules on a somewhat regular basis, and that just five percent are chronic rule breakers, (No Author, net). See Pie Chart on next page.

Another contributing factor to teen violence is peer pressure. Peer pressure is most effective when a student, who may not be very self-confident, is having a problem that his peers have strong opinions on. But people who often times encourage violence may not even know the person who is having the problem. In fact I have found that from my own experiences that people who don’t know the person who could possibly get injured often times are the strongest advocates of teen violence.

Something that goes right along with peer pressure is some of the cliques that students get involved in. As a matter of fact students will often times do crazy and sometimes dangerous things to better their chances of being accepted by this group of people. Cliques also cause separation between different types of people like the “Jocks” towards the “Stoners”, or the “Hicks” towards “Preps”. Although these groups of people may not have very different beliefs towards life in general they will often times be separated because of different stereotypes both groups hear about each other’s groups. “34% of them (students) cite as a second major factor the presence of gang members or peer pressure.” I believe that if people would be more open-minded towards different opinions, and ideas that many of the problems facing teens would solve themselves.

Sadly the issue of race still plays a major role in a lot of the violence found throughout schools nationwide. Race has been an issue in schools since the first anti-segregation laws were passed putting different races together. Even though it has been many years since these laws were passed. The threat of another person who may be different than you, causes some sort of reaction causing a person to want to be “better” than the other person, even though the color of someone’s hair or even skin doesn’t tell you even the beginning of who that person is. So there is no basis for racism in the first place. I believe that if people would quit with their narrow mindedness that this problem would also fix itself.

Another contribution to school violence is the parental supervision at home, at school and even with the friends you are with. It is strongly advised that parents be aware of the type of friends your child is associating with because of all the reasons just covered in the peer pressure section as well as the cliques section. Students concur the lack of parental supervision at home is the major factor contributing to violence in schools. I will further discuss this topic in the prevention part of the paper.

The next thing we must determine before we can figure out a way to prevent and eventually stop school violence would be to figure out who commits school violence. The only thing that people have decided on is that there is not one type of person who is going to commit violence. Instead we have decided that every type of person has done it at one point or another. Yes, everybody from the “Preps” to the “Stoners”. We do know that males are more likely to commit acts of violence, but that girl’s numbers are increasing greatly, (No Author, net). In most cases the people who are known as loners, often times are the people who commit such acts of violence like the Littleton, Colorado massacre.

To stop violence we must also decide who is targeted for school violence, and not only the person who is shot at and even killed in school violence, but also the person who brings the gun to school. Because in order for most of these people to do what they have done, they have put up with many years of torment usually given to them by someone who is socially more powerful than they are. It is also known that younger students are more likely to be attacked than older students, because most students who are older oftentimes appear to be intimidating causing them to be left alone, especially by younger students.

Where the acts of violence occur is also an important part of solving the violence problem. There are two main situations where violence sprouts abundantly, these places are any place where adult supervision is low, and where large crowds of people move back and forth from class to class. Violence is also abundant in hallways, under staircases, in the lunchroom or cafeteria, unattended classrooms, gyms, locker rooms, and restrooms. These places are targeted because there is few adults around as well as crowds of people are easy to form unnoticed by supervisors.

Now that I have touched on the causes of violence, who commits violence, who is targeted by violence, and where violence occurs. I believe I can now begin to give ways to prevent the spread of violence as well as steps to help ensure school safety not only locally, but nationwide also. First I’m going to discuss steps to ensure school safety at our own Flathead High. The first thing that must happen is to install metal detectors. I believe this would limit the amount of supplies one could get into the school for a large attack like at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. If our school had metal detectors at every door there is a lot lower chance that the supplies needed would even get close to school. Although this would help educators are frustrated because some obvious solutions are also the most elusive. The main cause violence in schools is also “… the most enduring and under rated problem in American schools.”(Cannon, pg22). Bullying is so often an underlying cause of school violence today. Teasing harassing and occasionally mild violence inflicted by the supposedly powerful against the presumed powerless often causes many reactions that lead to extreme violence.

Another way to help control school violence is to do what many schools have done. That is to use staff or police supervision to help control acts of violence, (No Author, net). But as Angie Cannon put it “Security added law enforcement play a role, but if that’s all you do you’ll fail abysmally.” In other words in order to control and stop violence you must not just do one of these things, you must do all of them. But sadly parents and legislators seem more eager to bolster school security than to build camaraderie.

One other way to help control the problem would be to use parents to monitor the students, because the parents often times will cause the kids to be a bit more well behaved because students fear what other peoples parents think about them. Rather than what a teacher thinks of them because most students do not see teachers as someone who has a life other than teaching, therefore it is easier to do things in front of a teacher because their is no emotional bond formed between some teachers and students.

One thing every school needs is to be prepared for the worst situation, this means to have crisis-response programs set up and practiced before something actually happens, (Cannon, 25)

The final solution I am going to propose is dress codes. Although dress codes are not looked highly upon by the student population, it has been proven that schools without dress codes tend to have more violence in them because the students are able to show their differences enhancing the probability of a student bullying another student. Schools with dress codes tend to have fewer cliques, as well as eliminate some of the harassment, (Koidin, A5).

Probably the most agreed upon solution is early intervention. Early intervention is the first step to producing a student that is less likely to commit an act of violence. If you teach your kids that violence will not solve anything it will cause the student to be more apt to solve his or her problems in a different way. “Early intervention is a key phrase among educators…. We had parents coming to schools wanting to fight other parents.” (Cannon, 28). This does not mean do not spank your kids. In fact I am a strong advocate for spanking your kids, I believe it teaches them discipline, respect and love. All of which are lacking today. I know that when I was a little kid that I was the furthest thing from an angel. I also know that as a young child I was spanked on a regular basis, because I deserved punishment for my actions. I would never criticize anyone for spanking their children. Actually I would thank them for installing the morals that kids lack these days.

During one’s high school years it is extremely important to keep a close eye on your child actions. I believe this because it is the most stressful time of this person’s life so far, and oftentimes students do not know how to cope with the stress. Stress is piled upon them by their teachers, parents, coaches, and even friends. Stress comes in all shapes and forms. You can get stress from homework, mid terms, right down to the simplest thing like running out of paper and having to borrow from someone else. I believe that parents should check to see whom his or her son or daughter is hanging out with because the parent needs to know if they can trust their child to be with his or her friends.

Dr. Susan Feigelman conducted a survey that lasted for four years. In her survey she asked 383 kids all ages 9-15 to be completely honest with their parents as well as the people conducting the survey. The study found that after just six months 8 % who said they had little supervision sold drugs in the first six months. The study also showed that 1 % of students who were closely monitored after six months had sold drugs. It also showed that after two years only 5 % of the students who were closely monitored, had sold drugs. Along with that it showed that after two years only 9 % of the people who were closely monitored had sold drugs after two years. The final thing this survey showed was that 78% of the students did not disobey. From this survey you can conclude that not only does close supervision help to reduce the amount of disobedience, but that it also almost eliminates the threat completely. The best thing you get from this survey though has nothing to do with the kids that did disobey. But instead that the majority of kids do not break the rules. In fact most kids go through all of their school years rarely having to “visit” the principle.

In order to slow and hopefully eliminate violence in schools we cannot look in one direction to solve the problem because the problem is all around us. We cannot allow these mass murders to continue to wipe out our youth, we must join together and install the morals, values, and respect that has almost disappeared from today’s youth. After we have done this we can then look in the mirror and say, “I have done all I can do to ensure the safety of my kids, myself, and my family.” And actually be telling the truth. Maybe it is not that kids have gotten more violent, but that instead technology has made it possible for kids to do this. As the great Albert Einstein once said:

“I have no idea how the Third World War will be fought, but I know the

Fourth will be fought with sticks and stones.”

I hope you have enjoyed reading my paper as well as found it the least bit interesting. Thank You.