Abstract
Some experts estimate the yearly cost of school vandalism at $500 million. Targets of vandalism include buildings, equipment, and furnishings. A survey of 16,000 school administrators in 50 States, to which 48 percent responded, showed that glass breakage was the most frequent form of vandalism. Other types mentioned included painting on walls and property, theft, lavatory damage, driving cars across lawns, and defacing school furniture. Most acts of vandalism are committed by the school's students, and they are as prevalent in affluent suburban as inner-city schools. Sociologists suggest that school vandalism may be motivated by vindictiveness, maliciousness, ideological concerns, acquisitiveness, boredom, or frustration. The typical vandal is a white male, aged about 15 years. A California study suggests that multiracial schools in low socioeconomic-status neighborhoods have the greatest problem with vandalism. Relatively few vandals are ever caught, and fewer still are prosecuted. In most localities, restitution has been minimal. Useful approaches to preventing vandalism include security measures such as key control, police and watchmen, and electronic protective devices. Such measures must be supplemented by an examination of the school's relationship to the total environment -- social, economic, and educational. 10 references.
