Uğur Evcİn

Objective: The literature suggests school structures and sociocultural environment and the networks within schools play important role in crime and violence among youth. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and variation of crime and violence across public high school (HS) types in Istanbul. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in May-June, 2010 in Istanbul public HS. The schools and classrooms within schools were selected by stratified random sampling, which recruited approximately 20% of HS population. The survey instru-ment included questions from European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs and Youth in Europe Survey. Turkish translations of both were previously used in research. Trained counselors conducted the surveys and confidentiality was assured by anonymous optic forms. The data were analyzed by SPSS 16. Results: Crime and violence rates were higher in occupational HS, followed by regular and Anatolian HS. However Anatolian HS students reported that more of their friends were involved in crime and violence than that of regular and occu-pational HS. Regardless of school type violence was more prevalent than crime and students reported use of vio-lence on others more frequently than being a victim of violence. Conclusions: Based on our results crime and violence rates were higher among occupational HS students than regular and Anatolian HS students. This might be related to school structure and resources and socioeconomic status of students. Possibility of attributing differ-ent values to crime and violence might explain higher violence rates than crime rates. Considering the findings of this study while developing school policies might be beneficial.

Objective:
School environment is one of the important factors affecting behavior and use of addictive substances in youth. School related studies on youth behavior are categorized mainly in three areas: School structures, socio-cultural conditions at schools, and social networks at schools. In this study, the prevalence of youth substance use (cigarette, alcohol, and cannabis) was compared across different types of public high schools (HS) in Istanbul.
Methods: The survey research of 31,272 students was conducted in 154 high schools in 28 districts of Istanbul, Turkey in 2010. The school types consisted of regular, occupational, and Anatolian high schools, which differ on curriculum, resources, and admission requirements. The participating schools were selected randomly through a stratification method.
Results: Comparison of school types across lifetime use of cigarette, alcohol, or marijuana showed that vocational HS students had significantly higher rates of cigarette [49.8%] and marijuana [4.1%], while Anatolian HS students had higher rates of alcohol [39.7%] use. Cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana were used lifetime 45.5%, 32.5%, and 3.3%, respectively by all HS students in Istanbul. Vocational HS had greater than average rates of cigarette and marijuana use and Anatolian HS had greater than average rates for alcohol use.
Conclusions: Substance use prevalence varied across high school types, but this variance was different according to types of substances. While planning substance use prevention interventions, policy makers should focus on improving facilities and resources in regular and vocational HS to decrease cigarette and marijuana use, while focusing on cultural aspects of alcohol use in Anatolian HS.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to explore the drug prevalence of youth and to evaluate the role of demographic characteristics on substance use.
Method: This self administrative survey was conducted in 28 provinces of Istanbul on 31.272 students from 154 high schools in May-June 2010.
Findings: Cigarette, alcohol and cannabis were the most commonly preferred substances among youth, and age, gender, income, school type, immigration, popularity, school attendance, and academic achievement were found to be correlated with substance use.
Discussion and Conclusion: School attendance, academic achievement and perception of drug popularity were found to be serious risk factors for youth in terms of substance use.
Conclusion: To reduce the impact of identified risk factors, the necessity of structural prevention programs and implementation procedures were discussed in the suggestion section

Gençler arasındaki madde kullanım davranışı ve yaygınlığı birçok ülke için
önemli bir endişe kaynağıdır. Bu nedenle ülkeler gençlerin alkol ve diğer madde kullanım alışkanları ve kullanım nedeniyle ortaya çıkan sorunlarla ilgili bir anlayış geliştirebilmek için farklı örneklemlerde çeşitli araştırmalar yapmaya çalışmıştır. Ancak yapılan çalışmalar, her ülkede farklı içeriklerle, farklı zaman dilimlerinde ve farklı yaş gruplarına yönelik olarak yapılandırıldığından ülkeler arasında sorun hakkında karşılaştırılabilir veriler ve kapsamlı bir resim sunma noktasında yetersiz kalıyordu.

Most of the studies on youth substance use in Turkey focus on drug prevalence. However, it is difficult to understand the changes in prevalence of substance use with cross-sectional studies because risk and protective factors also change in time. The aim of this study is to evaluate the risk factors studied in the literature and changes in prevalence of substance use between 2008 and 2010 in Bağcılar, Istanbul. The sample size of the survey was 2627 in 2008 and 2150 in 2010. The results of the analysis show that cigarette smoking and alcohol use have increased among youth while risk factors such as academic failure, schools absence, substance use of peers, deviant behaviors and activities without adult supervision have increased.

Objective: School environment is one of the important factors affecting behavior and use of addictive substances in youth. School related studies on youth behavior are categorized mainly in three areas: School structures, socio-cultural conditions at schools, and social networks at schools. In this study, the prevalence of youth substance use (cigarette, alcohol, and cannabis) was compared across different types of public high schools (HS) in Istanbul. Methods: The survey research of 31,272 students was conducted in 154 high schools in 28 districts of Istanbul, Turkey in 2010. The school types consisted of regular, occupational, and Anatolian high schools, which differ on curriculum, resources, and admission requirements. The participating schools were selected randomly through a stratification method. Results: Comparison of school types across lifetime use of cigarette, alcohol, or marijuana showed that vocational HS students had significantly higher rates of cigarette [49.8%] and marijuana [4.1%], while Anatolian HS students had higher rates of alcohol [39.7%] use. Cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana were used lifetime 45.5%, 32.5%, and 3.3%, respectively by all HS students in Istanbul. Vocational HS had greater than average rates of cigarette and marijuana use and Anatolian HS had greater than average rates for alcohol use. Conclusions: Substance use prevalence varied across high school types, but this variance was different according to types of substances. While planning substance use prevention interventions, policy makers should focus on improving facilities and resources in regular and vocational HS to decrease cigarette and marijuana use, while focusing on cultural aspects of alcohol use in Anatolian HS.

A significant increase in the number of captured street drug dealers has been observed in Turkey. However, there are neither available government reports nor enough social research in
this field in order to understand the possible causes. To implement better prevention policies, socio-economic risk factors and vulnerable groups should be identified. Thus, the aim of this research is to examine what is the profile of street drug dealers. To this end, information of 845 street drug dealers was collected through content analysis method. The statistical analysis of data shows that
gender, age, education level, occupation and location of dealers
have been found to be related to being a drug dealer in Istanbul.
Although the aim of the research is not to examine the impact of
socioeconomic factors on street drug dealing, findings show that
there are important commonalities among street dealers in Istanbul.
These demographic characteristics should be seriously considered
before implementing any policy.