Gangs In our Schools
First, I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve on this committee. In this memo I'm going to talk about gangs and their destructive influence on public schools and their students. Every child has the right to an education in a safe and secure environment, and violence in our nation's schools seems to come as a threat to this right. Gangs in schools have spread widely throughout the nations high schools in resent decades. This has caused many problems among students, families, faculty of schools, and residents of the areas. In recent estimates, almost three-fourths of the United States teens are afraid of violent crimes amongst their peers. In a survey given by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 49.1% of high school students saw a weapon in their school; of those 49.1% weapon reports by students 57.2% were cutting instruments (knives, etc.) and 30% were firearms. In this survey 13.9% confessed that they had taken a weapon to school, with 9% of the full sample bringing plain cutting instruments, 2.5% saying that they brought firearms, 1.3% bring
ated that 815,856 gang members are active in 30,533 gangs in areas not responding to this survey (http://home.netcom.com/). In a survey during the school year 1995-96 in Pennsylvanian schools were 20,003 assaults on student reported, from which were more than 11,617 gang related. The same survey reported 1,119 assaults on school employees, 1,274 firearms possession violations, 2,566 possessions of knives, and 7,738 other weapon possessions (www.pde.edu). Furthermore a study shows that schools with gang presence on campus are twice as likely to have illegal substances and weapons available on campus then schools without gangs present on campus (http://eric-web.tc). In 1989 3,301,000 (15%) students reported street gangs in their schools, however in 1997 35% of the students reported gangs in their schools (http://nces.ed.gov). Because of increased gang violence in United States high schools, the schools create zero tolerance on violent and gang related activities. ing "other" arms and 1.1% didn't identify. Additionally, 1.4% of the students state that they always take their weapon to school; 2.1% say they take a weapon frequently to school and 9.9% say that they too
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 789
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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