Construction of the Juvenile Activities Inventory

Violent crimes committed by juveniles in their school environments have been a focus of concern for the past few years. Since the tragedy at Columbine High School and the subsequent copycat efforts many questions have been raised regarding how such horrendous incidents could occur. How could adolescents who were raised in good homes do something like this? Did these students give any indication that this might happen? In response to these questions the Federal Bureau of Investigation produced a report listing characteristics that they determined to be present in the school shooters. To date, there has been no empirical work done on these characteristics. Therefore using these characteristics as a guideline, a questionnaire we call the Juvenile Activities Inventory was developed. The questions relate to individual experiences with school violence (in the middle and high school years), such as personal history of receiving detentions and participating in fights. This questionnaire was administered to 61 college-age students determine the utility of this method for determining previous incidents of school violence. Results were inconclusive and further research needs to be completed on this instrument. A subsequent study will be conducted using middle and high school students and attempting to postdict violent behavior using the questionnaire (modified if necessary given results from the current study) and actual school records of disciplinary action. It is hoped that this instrument will not only be useful in understanding school violence after it has occurred, but possibly be a method for preventing its occurrence in the first place