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Press and media covering violence on campus

The interest levels of the students in the United States of America towards studies and education has been going down considerably for the past few years mainly because of the kind of violence that has been going around in school.

Since 2006-2007, five incidents of school violence have been reported by the various news channels and the nation gets shocked each time such reports come on their television screen. Out of the five, three incidents have been because of shooting carried out by outsiders which proves the fact that the security measures in school are not strong enough and that anyone can create havoc in these places.

The reasons for school violence could be any of these following things:

  • Fights over property or girlfriends
  • Gang wars and disputes
  • Acts of suicide by school students

The above mentioned reasons have been the reason for violence in most of the schools and the middle and high school students are being deeply affected by this.

The media has played a major part in covering these incidents and also bringing to light and making the country men aware of it. According to them, fourteen percent of the students commit violence in school in 2003. And of the fourteen almost twice the number of people engaged in school violence has been engaged in violence even now. And as per records, almost fifty cases of the two hundred and twenty cases in 2003 have been gang wars and group fights. And the even bigger problem is that the people residing in urban and trendy areas look at these gang wars as some kind of fashion statement.

The reason why students become part of these so called gangs is because they have lost support and security from their family members which are being provided to them by these gangs. The environment and atmosphere has been deeply impacted by these gang wars and its notorious activities.

It is not only the gangs which are involved in violence, individual students are also involves in such activities who carry pistols and revolvers with them while on campus.

The following are some of the data pertaining to the violence in Virginia school in the year 2002-2003

 

  • There are have been 1,012 cases of inappropriate touching from the total number of 19.346 cases which is an astonishing 5.2%.
  • The bullying acts are 4352 in number which mounts to 22.5%.
  • And the weapon and physical assaults cases are 237 in number which means 1.27 in percentage.

 

 

In 2001-2002, firearms were found in possession with almost 180 students in Virginia on their school premises. This is very sad as firearms are not the toy guns and the bb guns that kids actually roam with.

 

Reports of school violence were also reported in school like Columbine High School, Colorado, United States on 20 April, 1999 which had killed twelve students and a teacher. There were twenty three injuries as well and three other people were injured in their efforts to escape. And they as part was that they were so shocked that they committed suicide.

 

These are just a few examples brought up by the media. There are much more than this happening in the country.