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Police training for 300 teachers
Special constable powers for tutors to help fight school violenceBY INGRID BROWN Observer staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, March 10, 2008
THREE hundred Jamaican teachers and principals are being recruited by the Island Special Constabulary Force (ISCF) to be trained as special constables, as the Government tries to find ways to arrest crime and violence in the nation's public schools.
The ISCF's acting assistant commandant, Desmond Brooks, told the Observer that the selected teachers will receive initial training from the police during the summer holidays, which would give them the authority of a special constable.
"Being a trained police officer and being placed in a school setting, they will know precisely how to handle the little nuances children get up to and they will also be able to protect the school, so it is not necessarily going about arresting students, but it is also to help them," he said.
The strategy is the latest in a number of measures being implemented to curb the increasing problem of violence in schools islandwide, which has spilled over into the streets, including inside the recently opened Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre in the Corporate Area, where there have been reports of clashes between feuding students.
Last Wednesday, Omar Lushane-Wright, a 17-year-old student of Bellefield High School in Manchester, was fatally stabbed during a fight with a student of Beaumont Comprehensive High School, also in the parish. Police said the two had a long-standing dispute.
The transport centre - a modern state-of-the-art facility - has been welcomed by commuters, but, although opened for just under two months, it has already become a haven for schoolboy gangs who have kept the centre's security personnel as well as the police busy, retrieving knives and other offensive weapons.
However, Brooks said cases of violence among students at the centre were not isolated, as it was usually a spillover from incidents within the schools.
"The issue is a more holistic approach towards solving a general problem of violence among schoolchildren, not necessarily at the centre, but at the schools which spillover there," he added.
With at least 11 incidents of stabbings, theft and fights reported at the centre within its first 25 days of operation, Brooks admitted that the authorities have had to increase police presence at the facility.
"In recent times, there have been several stabbing incidents and reports of vandalism by students who use the transport centre, and whenever we have situations like those we will act and increase our numbers in order that the greater presence can deter further incidents," said the ISCF acting assistant commandant.
He made it clear, however, that there was no deliberate attempt to target students at the centre as searches were usually conducted when it is suspected that a group of students may be in possession of offensive weapons.
A security guard employed to the transport centre told the Observer that guards have had to be doing several random searches of schoolboys which have unearthed several knives and even machetes.
"If you see the amount of knives and half-a-machete that we recover from these boys a day time...," he said.
The security guard said while, for the most part, the students are just hanging out, there were some boys who were part of gangs and constantly engaged in rivalry among themselves. Security cameras, he said, have been helpful in spotting the wrongdoers.
He said, too, that security guards were also busy on weekends keeping youngsters off the third floor of the building, so as to prevent indecent behaviour such as sexual contact on that landing.
General manager at the centre, Victor Green, told the Observer that while the ISCF and the centre's security personnel have been taking weapons from the students, the security concerns at the centre were no different from those in schools and the society on a whole.
"There is a feeling that all of this is caused by the transport centre, but this is just an extension of what is happening in the wider society," Green said.
Special constable powers for tutors to help fight school violenceBY INGRID BROWN Observer staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, March 10, 2008
THREE hundred Jamaican teachers and principals are being recruited by the Island Special Constabulary Force (ISCF) to be trained as special constables, as the Government tries to find ways to arrest crime and violence in the nation's public schools.
The ISCF's acting assistant commandant, Desmond Brooks, told the Observer that the selected teachers will receive initial training from the police during the summer holidays, which would give them the authority of a special constable.
"Being a trained police officer and being placed in a school setting, they will know precisely how to handle the little nuances children get up to and they will also be able to protect the school, so it is not necessarily going about arresting students, but it is also to help them," he said.
The strategy is the latest in a number of measures being implemented to curb the increasing problem of violence in schools islandwide, which has spilled over into the streets, including inside the recently opened Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre in the Corporate Area, where there have been reports of clashes between feuding students.
Last Wednesday, Omar Lushane-Wright, a 17-year-old student of Bellefield High School in Manchester, was fatally stabbed during a fight with a student of Beaumont Comprehensive High School, also in the parish. Police said the two had a long-standing dispute.
The transport centre - a modern state-of-the-art facility - has been welcomed by commuters, but, although opened for just under two months, it has already become a haven for schoolboy gangs who have kept the centre's security personnel as well as the police busy, retrieving knives and other offensive weapons.
However, Brooks said cases of violence among students at the centre were not isolated, as it was usually a spillover from incidents within the schools.
"The issue is a more holistic approach towards solving a general problem of violence among schoolchildren, not necessarily at the centre, but at the schools which spillover there," he added.
With at least 11 incidents of stabbings, theft and fights reported at the centre within its first 25 days of operation, Brooks admitted that the authorities have had to increase police presence at the facility.
"In recent times, there have been several stabbing incidents and reports of vandalism by students who use the transport centre, and whenever we have situations like those we will act and increase our numbers in order that the greater presence can deter further incidents," said the ISCF acting assistant commandant.
He made it clear, however, that there was no deliberate attempt to target students at the centre as searches were usually conducted when it is suspected that a group of students may be in possession of offensive weapons.
A security guard employed to the transport centre told the Observer that guards have had to be doing several random searches of schoolboys which have unearthed several knives and even machetes.
"If you see the amount of knives and half-a-machete that we recover from these boys a day time...," he said.
The security guard said while, for the most part, the students are just hanging out, there were some boys who were part of gangs and constantly engaged in rivalry among themselves. Security cameras, he said, have been helpful in spotting the wrongdoers.
He said, too, that security guards were also busy on weekends keeping youngsters off the third floor of the building, so as to prevent indecent behaviour such as sexual contact on that landing.
General manager at the centre, Victor Green, told the Observer that while the ISCF and the centre's security personnel have been taking weapons from the students, the security concerns at the centre were no different from those in schools and the society on a whole.
"There is a feeling that all of this is caused by the transport centre, but this is just an extension of what is happening in the wider society," Green said.
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