10.1177/1541204002238363articleYouth Violence and Juvenile JusticeKenn y, McNamara / REDUCING CRIME AND CONFLICT REDUCING CRIME AND CONFLICT IN KENTUCKY’S SCHOOLS

year, a pilot effort at student-led problem solving. Conducted in six Kentucky high schools, this effort was intended to determine if student-based efforts could improve quality of life on school campuses while increasing students ’ sense of empowerment and school commitment. The project’s evaluation identified problems of implementation and offers recommendations to strengthen future efforts. Since the recent tragedies in Paducah, Kentucky; Springfield, Oregon; Columbine, Colorado; and Jonesboro, Arkansas, school crime and violence have become a source of concern for educators, administrators, researchers, and law enforcement officers across the nation. The images of the tragedy at Columbine High School remain vivid as we struggle to make schools safe learning environments for our children. Although the specter of school violence is usually seen as an inner-city problem, more recent evidence suggests that all schools wrestle with this important phenomenon. For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (1999), high school seniors from metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas were equally likely to report being victimized at school. Sadly, despite general declines in the occurrence of school crime during the 1990s, surveys sugges