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Reports of gangs in Jamaican schools

Reports of gangs in Jamaican schools. Julie Meeks Gardner Joan Thomas Caribbean Child Development Centre, Consortium for Social Development and Research, University of the West Indies, Open Campus Col. Oral Khan Safe Schools Initiative Ministries of National Security, Health, Education.

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Reports of gangs in Jamaican schools

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  1. Reports of gangs in Jamaican schools Julie Meeks Gardner Joan Thomas Caribbean Child Development Centre, Consortium for Social Development and Research, University of the West Indies, Open Campus Col. Oral Khan Safe Schools Initiative Ministries of National Security, Health, Education

  2. Background • Much of the violence in Jamaica attributed to gangs • Anecdotal information only regarding involvement of children in gangs • Safe Schools Initiative designed and conducted survey to investigate gang presence in schools • UWI commissioned to analyze results

  3. Aims • To determine the scope of gang involvement in schools in Jamaica • To compare the results of different groups surveyed

  4. Method 1. • Cross-sectional survey carried out in 2007 • Govt.-supported secondary schools • 3 groups of respondents: • Principals • School Resource Officers • Students • Instrument: • 30 items (closed) • Self-administered

  5. School Resource Officers (SROs): • Programme since 2004 • Specially trained police officers • Deployed in high risk schools • Aim to reduce violence • Activities: • mentoring students • mediating disputes • searching for weapons

  6. Method 2. • Instrument: • 30 items (closed) • Self-administered • Data analysis • Frequencies • Results compared by respondent type,location • Details of gangs only analyzed where respondents indicated a problem with gangs • Questionnaires with no school name were omitted from analysis

  7. Results • 124 schools (50%) • 51 Principals (20%) • 27 SROs (28%) • 240 students

  8. Overlap in respondents’ schools

  9. Location of respondents

  10. Agreement among respondents from the same schools • 5 schools had respondents from all categories • 2 questions compared • ‘Is bullying a problem?’ • ‘Are there gangs at your school?’ • Agreement ranged from 60-80%

  11. Bullying is a problem

  12. Gangs present in schools

  13. Girls’ involvement in gangs

  14. Grades of gang members

  15. Number of gangs

  16. Gang activities † These were: gambling, smoking and intimidation

  17. School gangs linked to gangs outside

  18. Effectiveness of School Resource Officers

  19. Trends regarding gangs’ influence

  20. Gangs’ popularity among the general student body

  21. Analysis by location • All responses analyzed by location • No significant differences found by: • Urban vs. rural • KSA vs. rest

  22. Summary • First quantitative survey of school gangs in Jamaica • Gangs and related activities in about half of schools • Gangs not confined to urban areas • Gangs in the community may be influencing school gangs

  23. Limitations • Wide variation among respondents • Definitions of terms, though provided on instrument may have been problematic • Informants were not gang members • Problems with self-completed questionnaires, incomplete data

  24. Recommendations • Improve negative activities of groups • Improve information sharing within schools • Continued monitoring & more detailed research

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