Reducing Teen Dating Violence Through School-level Interventions
A new NIJ-funded study has found that school-level interventions reduced dating violence among middle school students by up to 50 percent. The multi-level, randomized control trial studied the effectiveness of school-level and classroom-level interventions, as well as a combination of the two, in reducing dating violence and sexual harassment in 30 public middle schools in New York City.
"The success of school-level interventions is particularly important because they can be implemented with very few extra costs to schools," said John H. Laub, director of the National Institute of Justice. "The scientific methods in this study were rigorous."
School-level interventions include using temporary school-based restraining orders, higher levels of faculty and security presence in areas identified as "hot spots," and posters to increase awareness and encourage reporting of incidents to school officials.
