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43 American J. Crim. Just. 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/acnjrlocm43 and id is 1 raw text is: Am J Crim Just (2018) 43:1-5 CrossMark https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-018-9433-y Introduction to the Special Issue on School Safety: Increasing Understanding/Decreasing Misunderstandings in the Realm of School Safety David C. May' Received: 19 January 2018 /Accepted: 19 January 2018 / Published online: 2 February 2018 © Southern Criminal Justice Association 2018 A review of any library catalog (or any popular bookseller website, for that matter) will reveal a number of book titles in the area of school violence. Titles such as Violence among Students and School Staff (Brooks, 2017), Violence in America's Schools (Thomas, 2006), Suicide, Self-Injury, and Violence in Schools (Juhnke, Granello, & Granello, 2010), and Violence in Schools (Sexton-Radek, 2005) reflect the strategy of publishers and/or authors to draw attention to the topic from a provocative, eye- catching perspective by focusing on violence. Additionally, journals in the field of education have dedicated entire issues to preventing school violence from their disci- plinary lens (Mayer, 2001; Mayer & Cornell, 2010) and an entire journal publishes four issues each year on this topic (Journal of School Violence). Although recent works (Kupchik, 2016; May, 2014; Timm, 2015) have reversed this trend and reflect the fact that school safety is much larger than prevention of what is traditionally considered as school violence, most Americans still think of school safety as preventing school violence. Thus, any article or discussion of school safety likely should begin with a definition of how that term is used in the current context (May, 2014). I want to introduce this special edition to the journal by providing an operational definition of school safety from the United States Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools that will serve as an umbrella under which the articles in this journal are covered. For the purpose of this issue, school safety is defined as the safety of school settings, such as the incidence of harassment, bullying, violence, and substance use, as supported by relevant research and an assessment of validity (Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, Department of Education, 2011, p. 19983). As I have argued elsewhere (May, 2014), the first part of that definition is familiar to most readers and would better be described as school unsafety, capturing the concern E David C. May dmay@soc.msstate.edu Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA Springer k