What can and should teachers and the schools be doing to prevent crime, and mental illness?
For mental illness, it would help greatly if teachers had a good understanding of it. Perhaps training could be provided, or there could be a course or courses during teacher training. What some think of as willful bad behavior or just strangeness might be seen as serious mental illness if they only knew. Knowing when to refer someone is important. And, knowing the various referral places and figuring out which one(s) is/are appropriate for the person is also valuable. For crime, teachers need to know about gangs and how to identify them, i.e. what kinds of clothing they wear, what their tattoos are, etc. Each gang has its own marks of identification. Then, the teacher needs to know that gangs are not just nice kids–although they could be nice at times–but are people committed to antisocial ways who will do horrible things. Teachers also need to have some understanding of non-gang crime, such as kids who use illegal drugs, fight, steal, etc. They need to have little tolerance of bad
