A Violence Prevention Curriculum-Reply

In Reply. —Drs Green and Wintfeld appear to have several misunderstandings regarding our study. First, the use of the phrase "violence prevention curriculum" is one that the authors of the curriculum coined. Our study purposes were clear: to determine the effect of the curriculum on some precursors to violence, especially physically negative and aggressive behavior. Our behavioral observers were trained to score physically aggressive behavior at 2 different levels of intensity. The lower intensity level was called "negative physical/nonverbal" and included acts such as object struggles, personal property damage, physical threats, aversive physically threatening gestures, physical pestering with protest, and minor physical contact such as shoving and pushing. The higher level of intensity involved violent attacks with body or object.¹

Green and Wintfeld's concern regarding whether our study was a randomized controlled trial merits further discussion. The randomized community trial, in which intact social groups are allocated at random to intervention