Youth violence, including bullying and other serious violent behaviors, has received increased political and scientific attention over the past several decades. Although violent behavior among youth and in the schools has declined over the past decade, the victimization of children by other children in school settings remains a major issue of concern. In response, a number of prevention and intervention programs have been developed to reduce the incidence of bullying and violence in schools. This meta-analysis attempted to examine the effect of school-based anti-bullying programs. Results suggested a significant effect for anti-bullying programs ( r = .12). However, this result seemed to be slightly influenced by publication bias and did not meet the adopted threshold for “practical significance.” The effect for programs targeted specifically at at-risk youth was slightly better, but overall, anti-bullying programs produce little discernible effect on youth participants. Reasons that anti-bullying programs may produce little effective change are discussed.

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Bullying behavior continues to be a salient social and health-related issue of importance to educators, criminal justice practitioners, and academicians across the country. While discourse on school bullying is abundant, previous studies are limited in explaining the predictive effect of factors such as individual/demographic variables, school environmental variables, and school antibullying preventive measures. Using a nationally representative sample of 12,987 private and public school students in the United States, the current study examines school safety measures and students’ perceptions about school environments (or climate), especially school rules and punishment. Findings reveal that the variables of security guards, fairness and awareness of school rules, gangs and guns at school, students misbehaving, and teachers’ punishment of students were statistically significant predictors of bullying victimization. Implications of these findings for school anti-bullying programs as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Previous research offered little guidance on sentencing outcomes for protection order (PO) violations in cases of domestic assault and whether PO violation charges affected offender recidivism rates. Using data from local court records, this study examined the effect of PO violation charges on the odds of case conviction relative to dismissal, and whether case conviction or a PO violation charge results in lower domestic violence rearrest rates compared to offenders not receiving these sanctions. The models indicate that PO violation charges has no significant effect on the odds of conviction or recidivism rates, and these trends were not significantly different for convicted versus dismissed offenders. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research with recommendations for future areas of study.