Panicked policy won’t help schools

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Panicked policy won’t help schools

By Tracy Warner
Editorial Page Editor

Thursday, January 17, 2013

After the Newtown, Conn., massacre, anxious parents called the Eastmont School District and asked if there were plans to post armed guards at every school door. Imagine that — the district like any other, has dozens, perhaps hundreds of school entrances used by thousands of children day in and out. Are our children facing such risks that we should turn every school into a fortress? Would they be safer if we did?

School security is naturally a prime topic. We should expect that. We should expect parents to be concerned. What we should avoid is policy driven by panic. Overreact, and much can be wasted without adding safety. The school culture and atmosphere is degraded. Students learn to live with a heightened sense of danger and insecurity, falsely, because the genuine danger is still remote.

A survey of local districts by The World’s Christine Pratt showed their reaction to Newtown is reasoned and pragmatic. Schools are rightly reviewing their emergency plans and procedures, updating training, taking practical precautions, but not calling in troops.

Elsewhere, the response is not so measured. In December, California Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced a bill to let states deploy National Guard troops to schools. “Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?” said Boxer. “... We must keep our schools safe by utilizing all of the law enforcement tools at our disposal.”

Every tool at our disposal apparently includes soldiers patrolling the perimeter of elementary schools. The schoolyard is treated as a potential battleground. Boxer’s idea is not so much different than the proposal by the National Rifle Association. In December it urged Congress to “act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation” by the end of January. That proposal was immediately criticized far more harshly than Boxer’s proposed troop movements. The NRA calls it the National Model School Shield Program, and proposes training and arming retired police officers and volunteers to stand guard.

President Obama, in his just-released plans in reaction to Newtown, proposes funding for 1,000 new school resource officers and school counselors. A school resource officer is an armed, on-duty police officer, specially trained and assigned to schools. They are nothing new. Federal appropriations have supported them in the thousands since the Clinton administration. Local school districts have or have had them, and those without are considering the option. Obama wants up to 1,000 more, which is a relatively small number considering there are 99,000 schools in the United States and until a few years ago there were nearly 15,000 school resource officers already in them. Critics say school resource officers are expensive, divert law enforcement efforts from more serious concerns, and don’t much improve student safety. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California noted they didn’t help at Columbine High School. “There were two armed law enforcement officers at that campus, and you see what happened — 15 dead,” she said.

Beyond armed patrols, electronics are enticing. There will be new funding for surveillance cameras and the like. Boxer wants more airport-style metal detectors. Schools have proposed measures like microchipped badges to track and catalog students and special entrance scanners matching students to their database. Schools could be made much like small prisons. Newtown had a buzz-open school door, which is an increasingly popular option that didn’t work.

The points to remember are, mass school shootings are horrific, but very rare; and so far there are no practical security measures that seem able to stop them. Criminologist James Alan Fox, an expert on mass shootings, said this in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Most security measures will serve only as a minor inconvenience for those who are dead set on mass murder. If anything, excessive security and a fortress-like environment serve as a constant reminder of danger and vulnerability.”

Tracy Warner’s column appears Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at warner@wenatcheeworld.com or 665-1163.

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davebugg 4 months ago

According to Capitol Weekly, and other sources that I have been able to find, " 23,200 schools — about one-third of all public schools — with armed security staff, according to 2009-10 data." So it is far from unusual for schools to employ this level of safety. I doubt that it creates much in the way of "a heightened sense of danger and insecurity" for students; that is what the media does with its repetitive, prolonged, and crisis-driven over-coverage of criminally derived tragedies.

Beyond the initial stage of having something new in-place, and recognizing that the motivation for security personnel stems from a desire by schools to try and manage potential crimes, students will quickly see that little has actually changed for them and their daily routines.

An armed security guard in schools which the NRA proposed is no different than what 33% of schools have already done; it is an established precedence. The low-level security presence suggested by the NRA is no where near the equivalent of what Sen. Boxer is proposing; militarizing a school campus is not the same as a civilian security presence. I bet the anti-military folks in Berkeley and San Francisco are near berserk over Boxer's recommendation. The left is running around ripping each other's hair out in reaction to what the NRA proposed, while at the same time ignoring Boxer's extremist strategy. Boy, doesn't that speak volumes.

Then we can examine Diane Feinstein's remarks about the NRA proposal for what they are...pointless and hypocritical. "...they didn't help at Columbine High School. There were two armed law enforcement officers at that campus, and you see what happened — 15 dead."

Ms. Feinstein ignores the fact and the irony that, while she is deriding the NRA by using Columbine as an example of what she considers a bad policy proposal, Columbine took place during the 1994-2004 "Assault Weapons" ban for which she is the primary author and sponsor. A law that she promised would keep gun crimes, like those at Columbine, from happening. Feinstein also ignores the fact that although students died at Columbine, many others were able to escape death or injury because an armed security guard was present.

I do not necessarily propose that a school be forced to have an armed guard, that is a decision that should be left to the local school boards. I do think, as has been proven time and again in a variety of situations and locales, that having a good guy with a gun is a far better option than leaving the weak and the innocent to the mercies of a madman/men with a gun. Armed security is not the sole answer to school gun violence, but I believe that it can be an important component if implemented correctly.

JimboBear 4 months ago

Dave, I agree with your post wholeheartedly, and Mr. Warner's article as well. Just because I feel that it should be mentioned when discussing "resource officers" or other armed guards at our schools, I'll throw this out.

When our children are finally allowed to venture out into the world alone, they encounter police officers at many points of our world. Many young people fear these policemen or fail to respect them because they seem to be far too authoritative for their liking and soon run afoul of the law in one way or another. I'm thinking that if those kids met and grew to know police officers from their first day of school experiences they would more likely consider them to be a helping and protective entity whom they are quite accustomed to consulting, not only in emergencies but daily as friends and mentors. Much the same as the "beat cop" of old who lived and worked right in their neighborhood were loved and respected by the vast majority of those they encountered, I think these school police officers would .be welcomed as well.

I'm not saying that every police officer would be a perfect fit for the job, but I think most would, and if they were allowed to participate as a part of the school staff and help plan for emergencies and implement procedures, I do not see any thing about them more traumatic for the children than I would see in a janitor or maintenance person. If it helps keep the crazies and those who would disrupt school activities, why not? There just might be some long range benefits forthcoming in the form of better police/citizen interaction in all areas.

davebugg 4 months ago

Good points, Jim.

Rebelrouser 3 months, 4 weeks ago

Jim & Dave, Very good points and I agree. I think the schools need to address bullies. Most of these deranged shooters had been bullied. Schools have denied the problem for too long

Chuck 3 months, 4 weeks ago

I know that the national discourse is putting the focus on the firearms themselves. Specifically the misnomers known as "assault weapons." For the two or three people who may read this then, here are the facts in an EXCEL sheet of 2011 FBI data. Notice that all rifles are in one column, be they bolt action, lever action, pump action, single shot, double barrel, or semi-automatic regardless of magazine capacity. Incidentally, in 2011, there were only 323 homicides committed with rifles of all type. This compares to 496 with blunt objects, and 1,694 with knives.

So, are we still going to collectively freak about a semi-automatic AR15?

The facts, free for your perusal and download:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8