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Inappropriate action by MPS security
Plastic handcuffs, sitting on children
By Nicole Provencher
School violence is in the public eye again after the Virginia Tech shootings and the recent suggestion by a Milwaukee alderman to have school security aides armed with plastic handcuffs for those really unruly students.
VA Tech will always be remembered as one of the most brutal school massacres in history, but what won't be remembered is how they handled it. They did the best they could and anyone that comments on their actions during such a tragedy has absolutely no sympathy for what happened.
Most school shootings cause school districts to reconsider their security plans. The good people of Milwaukee, educated as they are, decided that it would be just a super idea for security aides to control students while waiting for police arrival by using plastic handcuffs.
Just wait, it gets better. Before this genius idea of plastic handcuffs, they had been sitting on the uncontrollable students until the police get to the school. Did you catch that? They were sitting on the students.
What's going on? Who came up with the idea for staff to sit on a student until the police came? Better yet, why would plastic handcuffs make any difference at all?
According to a Journal Sentinel editorial from April 30, violence at Milwaukee Public Schools persists.
"Last week, a staffer at a middle school was knocked unconscious while trying to break up a fracas; a fight and a rumor of a fight led to lockdowns at two high schools; a girl, 16, threw two vases in the office of a third high school, breaking a mirror and causing a minor cut to an assistant principal's arm; and officials confiscated a loaded gun at a fourth high school and another one at a partnership school, a private school under contract with MPS."
It's obvious that not all of these problems can be solved with school security. Life at home has a lot to do with how these students behave with their peers and during classes. There are mental illnesses involved, as well as low-income family problems that need to be addressed if MPS really wants the violence to stop.
Get these families counseling, or therapy, or some kind of help besides increased security. Plastic handcuffs and sitting on students doesn't solve the problem, it only deals with the problem once it“s already occurred. Let's try to prevent it from happening now, shall we?
Preventing shootings like the one at VA Tech is pretty impossible. No one can predict what some people are capable of. But what did come out of this tragedy was some much-needed attention to warning signs -- signs that someone is in trouble and needs help.
If we take these signs into consideration more often in MPS, a lot of violence can be prevented and a lot of families could get the help they desperately need.
These solutions that are being tossed around are merely that -- solutions, not preventions. All school districts nationwide need more help in providing students and their families with tools they can use outside of school and ways to improve their home life.
With these tips and improvements, crime will decrease on neighborhood streets, school violence will not be featured every night on the evening news and low-income families living in poorly-run communities will be a thing of the past.
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