No ease

The head of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) is calling for stiffer penalties to be imposed on secondary school students who commit violent acts on school compounds.

President Rudy Lovell said it appeared as though authorities were reluctant to charge children for engaging in criminal activity despite evidence that students such as those go on to commit serious offences in adulthood.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, he suggested that stiffer penalties could deter some students from reoffending and also reduce the level of deviant behaviour in schools.

“We are concerned that it appears as if there is a move not to criminalise students for committing violent offences on school compounds. These children are spared and some go on to commit further criminal acts. I think the students are of the opinion that when they are not given a stiffer punishment, some of them believe that they can do what they did previously and get away with it,” Lovell said.

Over the past few weeks, videos of students fighting in various schools have been making the rounds on social media. On December 3, an altercation between two Parkinson Memorial Secondary School students ended in one of them nursing stab wounds at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Lovell said teachers were concerned that they were limited in the actions they could take in response to violent incidents. Currently, he said, the measures are suspension, referral to the Juvenile Liaison Scheme, and parental counselling.

“Specific measures and/or laws need to be developed that will help curb school violence while holding perpetrators accountable. In some cases, there is a high rate of recidivism among our youth. Rehabilitative measures are desperately needed for deviant students.

“There is a school of thought that charging students for committing criminal offences may criminalise these students; however, many of them go on to lead a life of crime and end up getting killed or killing someone,” the union official said.

Lovell said another concern is that criminals may seek to get school children involved in their activities “because they know that they are unlikely to be charged as authorities don’t want to be seen as criminalising students”.

The BUT president questioned whether there has really been an increase in violence in schools or simply “a continuation of the violent acts pre-COVID-19”.

“Pre-COVID-19, there were several violent acts in schools; you had a number of stabbings in schools. And then COVID-19 came along and I believe this is a continuation of the pre-COVID-19 actions of our students. However, the union is concerned and we want this issue addressed. Obviously, the issue cannot be addressed in a short-term manner and it will call for several entities working together to address all of the concerns.

“Getting to the root of the problem is critical and addressing the issues that contribute to the problem such as issues with the family structure and the lack of parenting, as in some cases students are essentially raising themselves. So, if we can address many of the concerns that are contributing to the problem over a period of time, we hope that we can see a reduction in some of these violent acts,” Lovell said.

Efforts to reach Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce on the matter were unsuccessful.

On Tuesday evening, the BUT convened a meeting with its members to discuss the topical issue of violence in schools, with the intention of writing to the Ministry of Education about its concerns.

Teachers made several suggestions to address the issue, including: a roundtable discussion with the Ministry of Education and education stakeholders; increased security personnel in schools; establishing internal disciplinary committees; ensuring that the boards of management of schools are functioning and are doing so effectively; additional teachers and/or teacher aides; mass parenting programmes offered by the Government; and penalties for delinquent parents.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb