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Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice

No. 240: School strategies to deal with gangs

Rob White
ISBN 0 642 24280 1 ; ISSN 0817-8542
September 2002

Abstract

This paper summarises school based anti gang strategies and programs that might be adopted in Australia. These include anti gang education programs; anti bullying and anti violence programs; better ways of dealing with school absences and exclusions, including school based truancy programs, re entry approaches for excluded and disaffected pupils, and restorative justice conferencing methods; and efforts to present positive models of peer relationships. By focusing on social inclusion, schools can play akey role in preventing antisocial behaviour and gang formation, and the paper summarises the key elements of socially inclusive schooling, as well as general educational strategies to address gang related issues. The predictors of moderately successfulprevention and intervention activities are summarised, and the paper concludes that school based gang prevention and intervention programs work best when there are local solutions to community defined problems.

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