Prevention Works

Criminalize Violence, Not Affection

First I read that a boy in Pennsylvania had used the Internet to contact the Finnish boy responsible for killing eight people and himself at a school near Helsinki, Finland last week.  Their online discussion centered on a website that glorified the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado.  Next, I read about how rumors of school violence caused many high school students in Tallahassee, FL, to stay home on Monday. Apparently, the widespread fear of an attack prompted many parents to agree with their kids’ decisions.  Finally, I came across a piece of news that declared violence is a common problem in high school relationships.  After a moment, I took a deep breath and started writing a blog article to address school safety and the important roles that students, parents, and faculty all must play in preventing violence in our nation’s schools.

However, I had barely begun writing before a colleague forwarded me an article from the Associated Press that I had not yet seen.  It was about a controversy that had erupted in an Illinois public school district after a student had received detention for giving her friends a hug.  According to the article, the hug broke a school rule that bans “public displays of affection.”  In an uneventful conclusion, the student served the detention she was ordered and the school made no change in policy.

It was the radical contrast of these articles that was shocking to me, although they all dealt with “school safety” in one way or another.  I still find it hard to believe that a student could receive detention for simply giving a hug.  I understand the need for school authorities to make sure that students keep their hands to themselves, and I also respect the concern of school administrators to keep their hallways clear of sexual promiscuity.  Still, it seems that punishing a student for hugging is a tremendous waste of time and resources, given our nation’s current backdrop of school violence and the fear of violence.  And at a time when the traditional notion tying teen sex to juvenile delinquency has been thoroughly debunked, practices like this one feel particularly archaic to me.

All these things took place in the same timeframe: A student serving her detention for displaying affection, an entire high school staying home for fear of violence, and a young boy chatting online, glorifying school shootings.  It all makes me wonder: Are we really doing all that we can to make America’s schools safer?  It’s time to get our priorities straight.

Are University Campuses As Safe As You Think?

In the spring of 2007, Seattlepi.com published an article by Mary Lou Leary, the executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, advocating the need to treat stalking as a serious crime.  Leary reported that one in 12 women and one in 45 men will be stalked in their lives.  In addition, of the female victims murdered by a partner, 76 percent were stalked the prior year to being murdered. 

Stalking is becoming a serious threat on college campuses.  For instance, on April 2nd, Rebecca Griego was murdered in her University of Washington office by her ex-boyfriend, James Rowan.  Prior to Griego’s murder, she had moved out of the apartment she shared with Rowan, ignored his calls, reported his death threats to the university police, notified her friends and colleagues, widely distributed photos and descriptions of Rowan, changed her phone number, and sought a protection order.  So, could more have been done by the campus to ensure the safety of their students and employees?

Yes, university police are trained to protect victims from acts of crime, such as stalking.  There are procedures that need to be enforced, such as, a combination of communication between campus security and other local law enforcement agencies. In the case of this spring’s mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman, was questioned in November and December 2005 after two female students reported that he had been stalking them on campus.  Christian Lilick, told USA Today that she had told a supervisor of repeated, distressing phone calls made by Cho.

After the events at Virginia Tech and the murder of Rebecca Griego at the University of Washington, I hope to see more campuses establish and enforce programs involving emergency response training, campus security escort services, and crime prevention committees.  As a college student there are times on campus that I don’t feel safe.  Do I know that if I were ever threatened, by a stalker or anyone else that I would be immediately protected? No, I have only heard about the precautions that one needs to take on orientation day for a brief ten minutes.

I suggest that many precautions need to be taken to prevent violent crimes from occurring at campuses.  Since some campuses are small, more effort from other students and staff need to be taken to help make stalking and other crimes widely known to law enforcement agencies as well as community residents.  There are also various resources, such as the Sexual and Domestic Violence Services, that can be found on the Internet.   Maybe when these precautions are enforced students and employees will feel protected from violent threats on school campuses. I know I would.

Schools Failing To Report Crime

The Washington Post recently reported that many school systems across the country are not publicly documenting the crimes they experience.  In fact, in most areas of the country, reports of violence, weapons, drugs, and sex in schools do not even exist.  This revelation surprised me, considering our society’s ongoing efforts to increase safety in our schools.  But even though there are some valid reasons why school systems try to avoid the documentation altogether, there are, perhaps, even better reasons why schools should be required to create annual reports of crime and make them available to the public.

Among school superintendents, principals, and other administrators, there is a reluctance to make crime reports public due to their concern for the school’s image and reputation.  In the Post article, Wayde B. Byard, spokesman for Loudon County schools in Virginia, said that teachers were worried parents might misuse the crime data to “rate schools based on arbitrary statistics that often involve students that are no longer at a school.”

But there is also a growing demand from parents for access to more detailed data on crime in schools, and I think that more and more school systems across the country will begin to keep better records.  Many school systems in such states as Florida and Pennsylvania already have detailed reporting systems, and once published, the information is available to anyone.  Many Washington, DC-area schools are also currently implementing annual crime reports.  Not only will these school crime reports inform the public of what’s going on inside their school systems, but they will also provide a good way of monitoring school safety over the years.  In time, such reporting could become an invaluable component of comprehensive school crime prevention programs.

Prevent Bullying; Prevent Crime

Although some people once considered bullying a rite of passage, parents, educators, and community leaders now see bullying as a devastating form of abuse that can have long-term effects on youthful victims, robbing them of self-esteem, isolating them from their peers, causing them to drop out of school, and even prompting health problems and suicide. Bullying impacts some kids because they take what the bully says to them seriously and what they hear can have a lasting effect. Over time we’ve heard criminals blame their childhood for the crimes they’ve committed. We cannot let this be an excuse, but we can recognize bullying as a contributing factor and work to prevent it.  If we can stop just one crime where innocent people get killed, like the atrocities this week at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School eight years ago, wouldn’t it be worth it?

At both Virginia Tech and Columbine, those who committed the murders were the quiet kids who were not like everyone else, the kids who didn’t fit in. They were bullied and ridiculed, causing them to react the way they did. They grew to hate the people who bullied them and those who they perceived to be like the bullies. I am not here to give excuses for what these people did; they were completely culpable for their acts. But if everyone worked to prevent bullying, perhaps some of these types of crimes could be prevented.

If each of us doesn’t take the time to stop it, then we all pay.

The National Crime Prevention Council has worked for years to stop bullying and recently launched a cyberbullying campaign aimed at stopping bullying on the Internet. Some tips on how to stop bullying follow.

• Take complaints of bullying seriously. Don’t dismiss your child’s concerns or expect your child to work through the situation alone.
• Talk to your child’s teacher, counselor, or other caregiver about reports of bullying. Work together to address the bullying situation. Don’t confront the parents of the bully directly.
• Ask your child specific questions about how your child is treated by peers, who he or she eats lunch with, and how other children are treated.
• Teach your child to be assertive. Your child should be able to express feelings and needs clearly, without shouting or other aggressive behavior.
• Provide opportunities for your child to make friends. Identify some of your child’s interests and encourage your child to pursue them through sports, clubs, or other group activities.
• Teach your child to identify bullying behaviors. These include hitting, damaging possessions, threatening, name calling, excluding someone from the group, spreading rumors, and embarrassing others.
• Teach your child strategies for managing bullying. If bullied, your child can walk away, tell the bully to stop, avoid the bully, or tell and adult.
• If your child sees someone else being bullied, he or she can help the victim walk away, invite the victim over to play or eat lunch, tell the bully to stop picking on someone, or tell and adult.
• Tell your child that you do not tolerate bullying behavior. If you learn that your child has been bullying others, work with your child’s teacher, counselor, or other caregiver to end the bullying.
• Be a positive role model. Avoid using threats or aggression when disciplining your child or when interacting with other adults.

If you would like more information how to prevent bullying please visit the NCPC website.

High School Hit Lists

I can clearly recall the chaos and confusion that was my high school career.  It was four long years fraught with new experiences, stress, and uncertainties.  There were very high highs and very low lows.  Like most American teenagers, I was often overwhelmed with such emotions as love and hate.  And like most American teenagers, I had to find outlets for that kind of stress, and I did so with sports, music, art, and volunteering free time.  But an article today from the New York Times highlights a new trend that students across the nation are claiming as a new form of stress relief: creating “hit lists.” 

Apparently, the practice of creating lists of people they would like to kill has become a sort of therapy for some troubled students.  And unfortunately, it seems that students in general are becoming more accepting of the practice.  It is prevalent on the Internet as well, and students are posting their hit lists on social networking websites such as Myspace.com, encouraging others to add to them or to make lists of their own.  In the article, William Modzeleski, a deputy secretary in the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, was quoted as saying,

“There is a sort of nonchalance about it. . . . Kids see it merely as a prank.  They think ‘Yeah, I’m on a list, and Johnny produced it, but he’s just letting his anger out and it will never happen.’”

Except sometimes it does happen.  And that’s why this kind of behavior needs to be stopped right here and now.  No matter the reason for creating a hit list, the fact is that in many of the worst cases of school violence, such as the Columbine school shooting in 1999 and the shooting at Red Lake High School in Minnesota in 2005, hit lists were involved.  For that reason, the creation of hit lists by students, even in jest, must not be tolerated for any reason whatsoever.

The only “benefit” of these hit lists is that students often display them in public, which gives administrators and parents the chance to intervene and either thwart planned attacks or give the students involved the attention they need.  Still, the creation of these lists is similar to shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater, and school administrators should adopt a zero tolerance policy when dealing with them.  Students caught creating such lists should receive immediate counseling to establish if they are legitimate dangers.  The threat is too real, and the consequences are far too serious to tread lightly around this topic.  Students will have to find more productive ways to release their anger. 

A Friendly Officer

Inner city school violence and crime have long been problems. Whether schools add metal detectors, security guards, or uniforms to stem violence and crime, in all likelihood these problems will continue amid the chaos of the school day. But if the goal is to teach children in "rough" inner city schools why it is so important for them to be involved in school safety, who is better to reach these students than the School Resource Officers (SROs) who go to school every day to keep the peace? Instead of just keeping the peace, teaching kids ways to prevent crime would be far more beneficial.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice defines a School Resource Officer as a "career law enforcement officer, with sworn authority, assigned by the employing police department to work at a school in collaboration with school and community-based organizations." SROs are taught to work in three main capacities: to be law enforcement officers, law-related counselors, and law- related educators.

Washington, DC, a city that has been known to have divisions between police and community, has decided to implement a program known as “the Officer Friendly Program.” Newly appointed Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier explained that police officers are a student’s friend and a resource if something is wrong. She was quoted at an event covered by the Washington Post as saying, "Police officers are just like everybody else; when you are at home and you see a police officer walking by, wave and say hello." She also told students, "When you need help, you go to a police officer." I hope these quotes will ring true in school-age children’s minds.

Chief Lanier is not undertaking this program alone. The National Crime Prevention Council provided materials including comic books, handouts, and reproducible materials to officers at a recent Officer Friendly meeting. The National Crime Prevention Council’s nationally known icon, McGruff the Crime Dog, will also be used to help SROs get students interested in preventing crime and promoting school safety.

For information on the Officer Friendly Program please visit the DC Metro Police Department website. For information on school safety and crime prevention, please visit NCPC’s website.

Truant Tracking

Lawmakers in Prince George’s County, MD, are desperately trying to address the issue of rampant truancy among the county’s youth.  And though it is a very serious problem for the region, Prince George’s officials are considering some disproportionately extreme tactics to address it.  If the current legislation being considered is signed into law, then the worst student offenders could be forced to wear electronic monitoring devices, such as ankle bracelets, so their whereabouts can be tracked.  But, as it often goes, this strategy only serves as a bandage for the wound, when we should all be more focused on preventing the injury in the first place. 

The root causes of truancy can involve a number of different factors, including fear of attending school, family problems, and economic problems.  We need more than satellite monitoring devices to truly address this issue.  Student offenders should be invited to the table when policymakers are discussing the issue and possible solutions.  The school system should involve parents, their communities, social workers, and nonprofit organizations to come to a more rational conclusion than to require students to submit to Orwellian practices. 

Luckily, the bill was put on hold until the conclusions of a truancy study are released in May.  Perhaps that will give people enough time to come to their senses, and realize that we should be addressing the root of the truancy problem, rather than criminalizing our nation’s youth.

Take Your Family to School

Next week, from February 11–17, schools across the country will be celebrating National PTA Take Your Family to School Week.  The event will involve such activities as career days, reading nights, and parents vs. faculty ball games in schools in every state.  And, not that any parent should ever need an excuse to be involved in their children’s lives, this week of parent/teacher involvement will provide parents with just that.  The PTA Take Your Family to School Week offers a fresh opportunity for all parents to learn about and help out with school safety in their communities.  Visit the PTA website for more information about how to participate.

We here at NCPC want to remind everyone that an official week of parental involvement at their children’s schools is not needed for parents to engage their kids.  Every parent should take time every day to talk with their children and learn about their thoughts, feelings, problems, and fears.  It often helps greatly for a child simply to be able to speak with someone else, especially their parents.  Speaking with your child about topics related to school, friends, and interests can also yield valuable insights. 

So talk with your child about violence—and how to resolve conflicts peacefully.  Then, set an example, and show your child that you can settle conflicts without violence.  Also, show your support for school policies and rules.  If your child feels that a rule is wrong, explain how that rule can increase school safety. 

For more school safety information and resources, check out our Be Safe and Sound program.

School Safety: Everyone's Responsible

Safe schools are essential for young people to learn and develop healthy relationships, but recent school shootings in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have prompted a national debate about school safety. Students and parents have questioned school safety plans, security procedures, and emergency guidelines.

A comprehensive school safety plan will combine immediate solutions, long-term prevention planning, and prevention programs tailored to the specific school facility, and may incorporate extra security technology and training staff. Some best practices have been listed by the National School Safety and Security Services for school safety security and emergency preparedness planning. They include

• Train the school administration, teachers, and support staff on school violence
• Evaluate and refining school security measures
• Update and exercise school emergency preparedness plans often
• Strengthen partnerships with public safety officials.

School safety cannot just be left to schools; parents and students must also be involved in order for schools to be truly safe.

• Students must make a commitment to not contribute to violence by bullying, teasing, or spreading gossip; to never carry guns; and to lead initiatives in school safety by joining or launching their own nonviolence groups.
• Parents must also be involved and informed both about school policies and  goings on in their children's lives. Parents should ask schools how the school controls access of visitors, request information about the school's emergency plan, get to know school staff, and request to have periodic meetings to review school safety plans. Parents need to be sure to be involved in their child's school life by discouraging name-calling and teasing, looking for warning signs of troubled teens, and asking their children about their concerns.

For more information on school safety please visit the NCPC website, order NCPC's Safer Schools and Caregivers Guide to School Safety and Security publications, or visit the US Department of Education school safety website and the National School Safety and Security Services website.

Don't be afraid to make a difference in school security. Students, parents, teachers— don't wait until it's too late to get involved.

Standing Together To Stop the Shootings

The events in our schools over the past week have been appalling. With a sudden barrage of inexplicable violence, such as the school shooting yesterday in Pennsylvania, it is difficult not to feel bewildered and powerless. However, through vigilance, courage, and cooperation, we can help prevent such atrocities in the future.

Vigilance and common sense can go a long way in preventing such violence, as they did last week when a student overheard classmates planning an attack. This student’s report to authorities helped avert a potentially horrific event. We were not so lucky yesterday. It is important for adults to be watchful of one another, too. If you notice sudden changes in the behavior of someone you know—especially changes such as despondence followed by sudden calm, like the changes that Charles Roberts’s coworkers noticed in him recently—they could be signs that this person intends violence toward himself or herself or others. Talk to the person or his or her family and work to ensure that he or she receives help before something unthinkable happens.

To help go beyond common sense, NCPC offers resources to help individuals and communities in their prevention efforts. Pamphlets such as Making Children, Families, and Communities Safer From Violence (PDF) offer valuable guidance on individual, family, and community action to help prevent and reduce violence. Through our website (see School Safety), we also offer a variety of other publications for caregivers and policy makers to help provide students with a safe place in which to learn and to help institute policies that foster safety. To help those affected most directly by violence, we offer information on Reaching and Serving Teen Victims, with insights specifically for helping teens cope with tragedy and violence. NCPC also offers a comprehensive program, Be Safe and Sound, designed to raise awareness of school safety and security issues and to provide stakeholders with concrete measures to make schools more safe and secure.

At NCPC, we are deeply saddened by the events of the past week and mourn the loss of so many innocent lives. We must remember, however, that together we can prevent crime and build stronger and safer communities.