Managing Disruptive Student Behaviour: The Involvement of Law Enforcement and Juvenile Justice in Schools

Source: (2002) Paper presented at the International Education Research Conference , Brisbane, Australia, 1-5 December 2002. Australian Association for Research in Education. Downloaded 10 February 2004.

In the search for more effective ways of managing juvenile violence and youth alienation in schools and in the broader community, a closer relationship between schools and a range of government and community agencies has developed. Cooperation between schools and the police and the juvenile justice system has brought benefits, but has also created tensions and exposed differences in viewpoints about how best to manage student behaviour. The control/punishment paradigm dominates the thinking of large sections of the community, as well as politicians, many government agencies, and some educational administrators and policy makers. This viewpoint has made it difficult for promising responses to anti-social behaviour to find a place in the behaviour management strategies of schools. (author’s abstract)