i got to write a serious long articel about school security / violance at school. Since i know that has come up a couple of time regarding to EDC carried stuff, etc. Can you guys give your opinion about this ? got plenty of statictis already... chris this is not against the rouls, right ?

Besides being the halls of learning, schools are also the halls of raging hormones. We had the "Jocks" against the "Hoods in my day. We had the arranged "see you after school" fight. We had the bullies inside and outside of school who pushed you around, stole your lunch money and other possesions.

The one thing we didn't have was the massive violence with weapons on television and in the theaters. When you got into a fight in my days, the two things I remember most were that getting beaten while fighting back didn't really hurt that much, and if you fought back, even the toughest bully would be less likely to take you on again either because he gained respect for you or because despite losing, you still managed to hurt him.

Todays violence in schools, as well as "drive-by" shootings seem to be committed primarily by cowards or wimpy kids who use guns because of of the desire to emulate a lot of the movies "anti-heros" who are always forgiven and even looked up to at the end of the movie by those who shunned them at first.

The bully who uses his fists and in the process vents some of his inner anger is actually a better person than the quiet "good kid" who maintains his pent up rage while planning a slaughter against all because of the actions, (real or imagined) of a few.

Bountyhunter

Your post is fine. Doug gets upset when kids logon and make one post "My teacher gave me an assignment to write about survival on a deserted island,write it for me." You've done research and asking for input as an establised member is o.k.

I think a big part of the problem is that people don´t care for others anymore. They just look away when they think that they are not affected directly. That way some people can be sure that they can get away with whatever they do. Children and adolescents try to push their limits and when no limits are enforced things tend to escalate. When I was at school, some fighting was normal but there were rigid limits. Noone used weapons even though it was permitted to carry knives in school. Even threatening to use one in a fight was considered to be cowardice (being a coward was even worse than loosing a fight). Fights had to be kind of fair. Bystanders cared enough to interfere if generally accepted rules were violated. That seems to have stopped.
Security efforts may keep these problems partially out of the schools but they are not likely to cure the problem. Letting students go through metal detectors and putting up CCTV are tangible efforts that help the people in charge to demonstrate that they do something about the problem. The violence will be done outside the school. That way the school staff no longer is to blame.
The cure would be to reintroduce some care for other people in our culture. Obviously that´s going to be a painfully slow process without immediately tangible results.

People have become accountable to just the government, not the rest of us. As M A X said, people would step in if rules were violated in a fight. This doesn't happen anymore because of mostly the threat of lawsuits. For some, it might even be getting arrested trying to help (the result of the "arrest them all and let the judge sort it out"). Criminals don't fear the "average" sheep...err... citizen. They probably won't do anything anyway.

I think that you have to choose whether you are going to address the issue as a stand-alone issue or whether you are going to come at it from a contextual angle.


[PERSONAL OPINION - MAYBE RANT]
Violence between individuals of any age is something that no society has ever completely gotten rid of. It is a natural consequence of competition and can be sublimitated to non-physical violence if it must be but it is there nonetheless as part of our human makeup. Within any given context the violence may seem out of place and will be distracting at least. Chris recently dealt with a case of cyber violence in this forum and that is an illustrious example for us to look into.

Used to be that there were real consequences for crimes and disrespect. Men would fight over their honor and neither side would resort to litigation after losing. Men would deul over the honor of a woman, family member or cause and none would consider it criminal. When there is an acknowledgement of the role of violence and self-defense and a socially acceptable path for escalation and justice within the code and all feel capable of self defense and none feel unfairly oppressed then violence, in itself, is not that bad a thing. It is the lawless violence that causes the problem and is often used to unfairly oppress individuals and groups.

In a school setting or any other small sub-culture which individuals optionally participate in but needn't be involved in in order to follow a life path of their choosing, the distracting nature of violence and competition is the real issue. It is sad when someone gets a bloody nose or a bullet to the head but the real damage to the school is the sense of insecurity and lawlessness that results from these events. The feeling that one cannot properly pay attention to their studies because they must worry constantly about their security. The sense that the educator must become an enforcement officer first and an educator last. These are the lasting damages caused by violence in the schools. (Or flamewars in the forum) Used to be very easy for a school administrator to eject an unruly student from class, suspend them from school for a month or expel them from the school system for good. With this ability severely curtailed it becomes necessary to structure the entire environment around the student that needs the most individual attention at the expense of the freedom, liberty and security of the 85% of the student body that is lawful and predominately respectful of each other.

To bemoan the poor mis-undestood child who comes to school and knocks in the heads of his team mates with the baseball bat and re-engineer the locker room and provide a police officer to manage the baseball bats so that you only have access to one when you ara actually at-bat costs the school a large amount. Not only in money but also in missed opportunities. The students can not practice when the officer is not present now. This is a detriment to the entire team far worse than haveing the star player with an emotional problem kicked out of school to play on the state penn team. Nonetheless, in our current society (in the US) the liability to the school for "failiing to educate " the emotionally disturbed player, when combined with the liability for having the other players knocked in the head puts the school in such a no-win situation that only the police officer can bail them out. This shifts the responsibility to the state as represented by the police officer at the cost of yeilding your students liberty to the state as well. The proper response is to shift the responsibility for the emotionally disturbed minor back to the parents by sending him home till they sort it out (or not) both empowers the family and safe-guards the liberty of the remaining students and creates a crime-free school without the armed guard. And the students that remain learn that emotionally disturbed violent behavior is unacceptable and that criminals will be removed to where they cannot cause harm or disruption.

But then we will hear the cry "You're leaving Johnny behind! Poor disturbed Johnny, the society owes him the education and the chance to become an educated member of society!" Well, if Johnny's parents don't want him educated enough to ensure that he can properly participate in the school community then it is Johnny's parents that have left him behind. Sad, but perhaps he should be transferred to better parents before he is allowed back into school. If the gov't. is going to step in and answer the problem then why not disrupt that one, poorly functioning, family instead of the entire school?

[/PERSONAL OPINION - MAYBE RANT]

of course I could be completely wrong and misguided. But hey, you asked.

This is pretty long......

Unfortunately, school violence has gotten out of control in the last 15+ years. Shootings like Columbine, and various other locations have more than illustrated this point. One thing is for sure, being a student today is alot more dangerous than it was in my scholastic era. ( granted i'm only 33 )

To echo part of what bounty hunter said, the violence we encountered in the 70's and 80's was relatively tame. Fist fights were the standard method of agression, or resolving disputes. Weapons were extremely uncommon, and any one who pulled one, or attempted to use one was more often than not beaten to a pulp by everyone at the fight. It was almost a "code of honor" that you didn't fight dirty, use weapons, bite, pull hair, or throw sand in someones eyes as long as the two people doing the fighting were more or less physically equal in stature.

Bullies were not too common, but did exist. They were no organized "gangs" that wore "colors" , only loosely formed social groups who existed alongside each other with the occasional blow up or group fight in the school common area, or at the friday night football game. Groups like the "jocks" - athletes, "kickers" - country kids/cowboys, "stoners" - rock and roller/long hair kids, "preppies" kids from well to do families, "punks" known today as "goths", and the list goes on, were the only things you had to watch out for.

I think a large part of it has to do with societal change/ influence, but thats my opinion. At that time in this country the internet was non-existant. No places to go like chat rooms to find others like you, no crazy web sites encouraging racial supremacy/ violence. Television was largely non-violent, or if violence was portrayed it was regulated. Video games were primitive at best, and most were space, fantasy, military, or sports based. Music was about getting girls, dancing, cars, etc. Even "rap" was tame. It was all about partying and having fun.

Not so today... Not by a long shot.. The internet, while a very useful tool, is also one giant anonymous cesspool where almost every kid on the planet can find explosive recipies, buy knives, or almost any other destructive information they want to find. Alot of fringe groups and other unsavory folks hand out their own twisted political and societal opinions on life, and are only more than willing to explain them to any one who will listen, or indoctrinate new members to their way of thinking. Alot of music has degraded to nothing more than describing sex, and encouraging violence.. Just listen to any N.W.A. , Ice Cube, Ice - t , Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica album ( and the list goes on, and on and on..) and you'll see for yourself... Video games are ultra violent today. You can go to the local Wal-Mart and pick a number of games right off the shelf where you can, run over people ( vice city ) , shoot them , set them on fire ( postal 2 ) , decapitate them with a shovel ( postal 2 ), have sex with prostitutes ( vice city ) ... And there are many, many others that are all killing based. Television today is fairly well violence/sex oriented, cable, and satellite even more so. I own, vave played, or listened to all the things i've mentioned above. But, i'm an adult and know the difference between reality and fantasy... I'm not saying most kids dont, but constant, daily exposure to this stuff can and does influence them. Possibly leaving them with the idea that violence with a weapon is the best solution to a problem.

Lack of parental involvement, responsibility and control is in my opinion is a BIG factor as well.

For example, my Mother and Father regulated what we watched on TV, who we hung around with, and were aware of what my brother and I did. They asked questions, looked in our rooms for things we shouldnt have, knew what we were up to, and diciplined us appropriately when we broke the rules.

My folks never abused us, but my father and mother liberally applied belt and fly swatter, as well as "grounding". If you aren't familiar with grounding, it is restriction of priviledges that in my house included : No TV, no radio, no video games, no phone calls, no friends over, no leaving the house... You came home from school, went in your room and did your homework, came out of your room for dinner and immediately went back into it when dinner was done, at 9:30 you were in bed - lights out.. The standard length was 2 weeks.

There were many firearms in our home as well. Pistols , rifles and shotguns all stored in a glass doored gun case. We were taught from an early age gun safety and handling. Pointing any weapon at another person wheather loaded or unloaded was the most serious crime you could ever commit in our home. I learned this when my father witnessed my older brother aim an unloaded pellet rifle at his friend.. My father took the rifle by the barrel and wrapped it around a tree, "diciplined" my brother, grounded him for 3 months, and didn't allow him to handle any weapons for 1 year. He never did it again.....

Alot of parents today have no clue what their children are doing. ( in school , or otherwise ) They are too "busy" with careers, or other things. They don't dicipline their kids.. ( just go to any supermarket, mall or restauaunt for multiple examples of what i'm describing..) Parents that do own firearms don't teach their children how to safely handle them, or show them what kind of damage they can inflict when fired... Barring that, they are irresponsible in securing them, and the ammunition for them. To me, if you own a gun and are a parent you have a moral and legal responsibility to make every reasonable attempt to keep them from falling into the hands of a child, or teenager.... Its really sad..


As a result School security is needed. Metal detectors, physical searches, gun/bomb/drug sniffing dogs, and full time armed security are all things I would want to see in a school any child of mine would attend. Students don't need knives, guns, slingshots, blowguns, flare guns, pepper spray, batons, or anything else along these lines..

I also believe that any student that acts out violently ( unless in legitimate self-defense )or threatens another student or teacher needs to be removed from the school immediately/ arrested and dealt with firmly in the legal system. This country needs to send the message to students and parents that this sort of behavior is wholly unacceptable and will not be tolerated in any form wheather your child is the captain of the football team, or the quantum physics club. Children are in school to learn, not to be subjected to some Darwinian "survival of the fittest" environment. If a problem with another student is brought to the attention af the faculty or administration it needs to be swiftly, and firmly dealt with..

Unfortunately I really think an "Iron Fist" approach is going to have to be used...

Matt

Outstanding observation! Luckily, I retired in an extremely rural area and don't have to witness most of the things you talked about any more. I've seen a lot of that stuff in cities around the world and I've had my fill. Now my three kids can run wild, as long as the dogs are there for snake/wild animal protection. I don't plan on mowing my yard in the buff... but the option is available. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Semper Fi, George

PC2K,

I don't know if this is what you want or not, but here it is. I teach agriculture in a semi-rural area of Arkansas. There is really little actual violence at the school today. There has been a lot of legislation about terroristic threatening, bullying etc. In the 4 years that I have been here, I have known of about 4-6 fights in each school year and nothing as far as I can recall having to do with weapons. <Knock on wood for luck> The students are not allowed to have knives, chains, lighters or anything like that. Good luck on your report.
Hillbilly