Preface to the Handbook of School Violence

"When I was like 11, I was hanging out. I used to go to a middle school. It was for bad people, only bad people go there. It’s a school just for bad people that had gotten kicked out of school. And I had got kicked out of my school cause they found me with a gun…I took it out on this dude. We had got in a fight, a Spanish dude. We started fighting and then I got mad and I took out the gun. I got locked up and they put me in that school. And then I started hanging out with wrong people. Started breaking into houses and stuff, started smoking weed and drinking Old English."

This is the voice of a gang member featured in Chapter 7 of the Handbook of School Violence. The book brings together many voices: the voices of violent youngsters and of the helpers who provide needed care; the voices of students who feel no connection with their families or with their work at school; the voices of those who strive to prevent these students from acting on their feelings of alienation; the voices of scholars - - new and old - - who create theory and research, laying the foundation for school violence prevention and intervention.

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