The 1990’s were turbulent for schools, especially
concerning student victimization. Most prominent
were the shooting rampages, culminating in 1999
with the infamous Columbine attack in which twelve
students and one teacher were murdered. Interest-
ingly, the final report from the Safe School Initiative,
a federal joint commission of the United States Se-
cret Service and the Department of Education,
noted that of the school shooting rampages covered
during the study period (1974-2000), twenty-eight of
thirty-seven (75.7 percent) occurred during the
1990’s. Other forms of victimization were also dis-
turbing. For example, a 1996 study of high school
dating relationships found that 59 percent of the stu-
dents reported physical violence and 96 percent re-
ported psychological intimidation. Fifteen percent
of the sample asserted that they engaged in sexual
activity against their will.
Yet it is not the case that violent crime was en-
demic in the school system during the 1990’s. This
needs to be viewed in the context of other types of
victimization. Differentiations should also be made
regarding the categories of violent crime. Further-
more, its prevalence has not been uniform across
different countries.
For example, data on school safety from 1993 to
1997 indicate that 7 to 8 percent of American high
school students were threatened with a weapon or
sustained actual injuries and 15 percent had a physi-
cal fight. Less than one in one million students died
by either murder or suicide during that period. Ac-
cording to a Canadian survey from 1995 to 2002,
youths there have traditionally had a very low rate of
court involvement and violent crime, especially in-
volving firearms. As in the United States, however,
the 1990’s saw large percentage increases in serious
juvenile criminality.
Violent crime in the schools should be evaluated
in light of other crimes, especially property crimes,
that have traditionally dominated the juvenile case-
load. 1.6 million thefts were perpetrated against
American high school students in 1998. There were
only 60 violent student fatalities in the schools.
Finally, one needs to consider violence in other
places, such as home and work. The U.S. Depart-
ments of Education and Justice reported that only
1.4 percent of 3,000 children who were murder or
suicide victims during 1997-1998 died in school. Stu-
dents felt safer in school at the end of the 1990’s than
at the beginning, despite the school rampages.
School crimes decreased by the end of the 1990’s,
along with the number of students coming to school
with weapons.
Etiological Factors School violence during the
1990’s focused much attention on the search for
motivations, especially regarding the infrequent
but catastrophic shooting rampages. Among those
investigated were biological variables, including
chromosomal makeup, inadequate fetal nutrition,
and neurological impairments leading to verbal
deficits. Many children with legal records have dual
diagnoses including hyperactivity and learning dis-
abilities. Other analyses cited a lack of parental at-
tention during infancy and ineffective discipline,
including parents’ own sense of their ineffective-
ness. Children’s sensitivity to being frequently eval-
uated may cause increasingly severe exhibitionistic
behaviors. The socioeconomic reality of living for
years at or below poverty level may produce aggres-
sive responses reflecting frustration. One of the
most interesting theories emphasizes antigay bully-
ing to which school rampage perpetrators are fre-
quently subjected.
All of the above factors can and do interact in
complex ways, presenting a challenge to school ad-
ministrators and teachers trying to anticipate violent
episodes and deal with them preventively.
Policy Implications Violence in American schools
has created many victims. Even though the most vir-
ulent forms of school violence are statistically infre-
quent, an atmosphere of fear pervades what should
normally be a protected sanctuary for the free ex-
pression of ideas. Analysts of school violence in the
1990’s conclude that although the gun rampages do
not seem to have been committed by students fitting
any uniform profile, there are common aspects that
can and should be noted to reduce the likelihood of
similar incidents. Among them are the following:
The attacks themselves were almost all preplanned,
with specific types of behaviors involved from several
days to even a year before the incident. Many other
students knew about these preparations and much
harm might have been prevented if there were a
structure in place to encourage them to inform
school personnel of the warning signs. Significant
life losses and failures, and incidents of victimization
by bullying, have frequently preceded the attacks.
While certainly not all such students go on to com-
mit a rampage, these populations are significantly atThe Nineties in America School violence 751