Misbehaviour Among School Children: The Role of the School in Strategies for Prevention

On the purely pragmatic grounds that it may be easier to change the child’s school than his home, the proposal that policy should give the school a central part to play in the prevention of crime must be taken seriously. What remains a matter of debate is whether the school is capable of fulfilling this role. A review of the research literature reveals general agreement that secondary schools can exert an independent influence over the behaviour of pupils. One exception to this consensus of opinion – and, in particular, to the conclusions of Power et al. – is presented by the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development conducted by West and Farrington. On the basis of their findings, the authors concluded that ‘attendance at different secondary schools made no substantial difference to boys’ pre-existing delinquency potentials’. A more detailed discussion of the same data, however, had earlier led Farrington to a rather different conclusion: having noted that differences in the delinquency rates between schools were primarily due to differences among the boys entering them, Farrington commented that ‘it should not be assumed that secondary schools have no influence at all on the development of juvenile delinquency’.