Absenteeism: epidemic or controllable rebellion? Audience: parents, police officers, and students.IntroductionIn recent discussions of juvenile delinquency, a controversial issue has been whether or not students arrested or penalized for truancy are successful. On the one hand, police and other authoritative figures say it's a great way to make an example of them so other kids don't follow their path. On the other hand, many argue that this will not affect students and that the problem will continue to recur. Explaining what truancy is has often been defined as “a student having excessive and unexcused absences.” According to truancyprevention.org, the definition of truancy can vary by state and school district, but the general working definition of a truant student is five or more unexcused absences within a month or ten in a year. For clarification, unexcused absences are defined when a student misses the majority of hours or periods in a school day or may not meet their school district's excused absence requirements. Under this working definition, local school districts and individual schools have considerable discretion in determining what is considered an excused absence. It is difficult to differentiate what constitutes truancy and how to control the problem due to: the lack of a clear definition of truancy; lack of control groups; lack of a larger number of students examined; lack of review of the performance of absent students after the interventions. Absent Students and Why They Are Absent Three categories of characteristics related to truancy are provided in today's media: personal, family, and school. Personal traits. In case studies that criticized truancy... middle of article...... school attendance among students who are chronic truants. Campbell Library. Retrieved April 3, 2014 from http://campbellcollaboration.org/lib/project/118/Nesmith, A. (nd). Engage families to prevent chronic absenteeism. SOPHIE. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from http://sophia.stkate.edu/msw_papers/278/Petzko, V. N. (2011). The relationship between the characteristics of large metropolitan high schools and school attendance rates. Retrieved April 3, 2014 from http:www.worldcat.org/title/relationship-of-characteristics-of-large-metropolitan-high-schools-to-school-attendance-rates/oclc/27959857Truancy. (December 19, 2013). Improving Attendance (CA Department of Education). Accessed April 3, 2014, from http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ai/tr/Truancy Definition, Facts and Laws. (nd). Absenteeism Prevention TruancyPreventionorg RSS. Accessed April 4, 2014 from http://www.truancyprevention.org/