The impact of school’s security and restorative justice measures on school violence

Abstract

Scholars have spent considerable time assessing the utility of school policies and practices designed to make schools safer, many focusing on exploring the relationship between security measures and school violence (Peguero et al., 2018). However, to date, there has been a lack of research examining the simultaneous effects of both school security mechanisms and school restorative justice measures on school violence. To help fill this gap in the literature, the current study examined the relationship between school security measures, restorative justice policies, and incidents of school violence using data from the 2018 School Survey on Crime and Safety. Findings indicated that security measures and school demographic characteristics had greater effects on school violence than did restorative justice measures; however, there were differences noted between models that examined violent incidents indicated by school personnel and violent incidents reported to police. In light of these findings, implications designed to curb school violence are discussed within.