Mike Bloomberg's Plan For City Schools
Another day, another checkpoint in NYC. This time, school students are to be subject to roving police checkpoints that will deploy metal detectors to search them on their way into school. While metal detectors have been in use for many years at some schools, this move is Bloomberg's own initiative on violence in schools.
Needless to say, no weapons were found in Wednesday's sweep. School shootings are phenomenally rare and teens are much more likely to be victims of violent crime outside school than within. The main item confiscated was students' cellphones, lamely justified by the Schools Chancellor on the basis that they had been used by "to take pictures in locker rooms, cheat on exams and summon friends to start fights."
We have oft noted the corrosive impact of such casual securitization. City schools need to inspire not coerce, a role they cannot play if we turn them into prisons. If kids grow up thinking 'it's a jungle out there' how can we expect them to engage in society to their full potential? Meanwhile, when some spirited youngters showed intiative and protested the cell phone ban two weeks ago, they were arrested. Nonetheless, further protests greeted the arrival of the detectors, perhaps a sign that the children are less easily cowed and assuaged than their parents. Their example should shame the rest of us into halting Bloomberg's creeping securitization of everyday life.
Needless to say, no weapons were found in Wednesday's sweep. School shootings are phenomenally rare and teens are much more likely to be victims of violent crime outside school than within. The main item confiscated was students' cellphones, lamely justified by the Schools Chancellor on the basis that they had been used by "to take pictures in locker rooms, cheat on exams and summon friends to start fights."
We have oft noted the corrosive impact of such casual securitization. City schools need to inspire not coerce, a role they cannot play if we turn them into prisons. If kids grow up thinking 'it's a jungle out there' how can we expect them to engage in society to their full potential? Meanwhile, when some spirited youngters showed intiative and protested the cell phone ban two weeks ago, they were arrested. Nonetheless, further protests greeted the arrival of the detectors, perhaps a sign that the children are less easily cowed and assuaged than their parents. Their example should shame the rest of us into halting Bloomberg's creeping securitization of everyday life.
4 Comments:
This post is a nice example of the AWOT MO, applied to a different problem. You assert that the government's response to a perceived security threat is excessive and inappropriate WITHOUT PRESENTING ANY EVIDENCE THAT THE THREAT IS NOT REAL. "Needless to say, no weapons were found?" NOT needless to say! By many accounts, a significant number of NYC schools are overrun with discipline problems, including student violence. These problems are far more damaging to kids' education than any metal detectors. And they will hardly be solved by libertarianism.
Actually, af, you are wrong about this particular post and our approach in general. As you will see if you reread the post, we link to an site showing kids are TWICE as likely to be victims of serious crime outside school than in. According to your 'MO' that would require metal detectors EVERYWHERE! And if you check the link below you will see the number of homicides in all age groups is falling throughout the US. So why metal detectors now is a highly pertinent question, one that, when generalized, informs our entire project.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/teens.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/teens.htm
A little easier for the reader.
Saying we shouldn't be taking security measures at public schools because homicide rates are low is sort of like saying we shouldn't have metal detectors at airports because Al Qaeda doesn't have nukes. Of course, you may say that too!
Let's agree on two premises: first, the carrying and use of weapons at school are detrimental to education irrespective of homicide rates, and second, most relevant to educational impact are absolute, not relative, weapons rates.
According to the same source (albeit a more recent version) that you cited, 9% of US students reported being threatened or attacked with a weapon, and 6% reported carrying one on school property in 2003.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/Indicators.asp?PubPageNumber=4
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/Indicators.asp?PubPageNumber=14
At a high school of about 700 students, (the average size for a US high schol see http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/tables/dt098.asp), that's about 42 kids carrying weapons and 63 threatened or attacked. Even if the numbers -- which are from student survey responses -- are 10 times too high, this is happening at the average school. Still think it's "needless to say" that no weapons were found?
Now, if someone declared a "war on school violence," I'd be against that. And I'm against the "war on terror" too. But I'm not against security, and, for me at least, your tirades against acceptable security measures are obscuring your criticisms of those that are unacceptable. Oh, and by the way: Where DO you stand on airport security checks?
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