MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS Continued DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS, WEEKLY BREAK-IN REPORT-Continued Apr. 2... Apr. 3......... Central.. Do.. Lincoln.... Entry to building was gained by forcing playground door No system. Security alarms During evening intramural activities someone took Broke out entrance glass on the south and north sides, Sonitrol. Neighbors called that some boys were going into the No system. Window in room 104 was broken, entry was made. Do. Do. At 9 p.m. Ken Hess received a security call. The boiler Sonitrol. not known how it was opened. Both the head man and the second man said they didn't receive any security Door glass was broken to gain entry into school. 3 sets No system. Repair of skin on the portable which was damaged by Debris was thrown in 4 toilets. They had to be taken Bradley wash fountain was torn apart. Plumbing shop- Panic hardware torn off of entrance doors. Carpenter Apr. 5. Lehmann Center... Someone used a heavy rod or some other instrument and ran it right through one of the toilets. A new toi- Do. SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1-MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., STATEMENT OF GLASS BREAKAGE, BURGLARY. AND VANDALISM, COMPARATIVE COSTS FOR THE YEARS 1965-71 1 This amount includes a nonrecurring charge of approximately $38,000 to set-up glass inventories in the schools. SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1-MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. STATEMENT OF GLASS BREAKAGE, BURGLARY, AND VANDALISM, SUMMARY FOR THE CALENDAR YEAR 1971 Chairman, Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Committee on Education and Labor, General Subcommittee on Education, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR REPRESENTATIVE PERKINS: Rather than supply you with data about normviolative behavior in the schools, I am enclosing a series of clippings which, taken together, indicate the seriousness of crime in the schools. We are particularly interested in "proposed or already implemented solutions to the problem, including any appropriate activities or role for the federal government." In our opinion, law education in the schools may provide one significant approach to solutions. I use the word approach because it would be presumptuous to suggest that law education programs, per se, will reduce normviolative behavior in the schools. On the other hand, education can and must do much to prevent the actual norm-violative behavior from taking place, and the Lincoln Filene Center is concentrating much of its resources toward this end. The vast majority of educators who reach young people, especially teachers, have little or no knowledge of what the law of torts, larceny, and morals (with reference to sex crimes) procedure actually are. Rarely do teachers and the process of education touch upon the psychology or sociology of crime, or have dialogues about what is a crime and what is not, and what the consequences of criminal behavior are. Too often, young people do not know when fooling around ends and a crime begins. They know so little about the adversary process in the courts, the actual roles performed by lawyers and prosecuting attorneys, and the police in our society. We have had sufficient success with our programs and materials to convince us that law education can definitely make an inroad toward crime prevention in our schools. Most assuredly, in our opinion, the "Safe Schools Act of 1973" or some other legislation should provide for modest Federal funding for law education programs which deal directly with crime prevention in school and the society. The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in the Department of Justice has allocated many millions of dollars toward reduction of crime; however, less than one percent of those vast funds (if that) have been channeled toward preventive law education programs in the schools. Those of us in the United States who administer law education programs in the schools feel strongly that the disgraceful statistics relating to adolescent crime in the schools and society can be redressed through training and curriculum which deal directly with a truly pressing national problem. If we can be of any assistance to you or the Committee, I do hope you will let me know. Thank you again for your kind consideration of us. Respectfully yours, Enclosures. JOHN S. GIBSON, Director. SECURITY DIRECTORS AIM TO PREVENT SCHOOL INCIDENTS (By the Associated Press) Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-Educators don't know how to deal with violence in the schools and often resort to calling in armed police who only inflame the situation, says a former FBI agent who now heads the International Association of School Security Directors. Joe Grealy, who has a report based on the experiences of association members in 165 cities, says "guns and uniforms" are not the solution. "Calling the police in is too late," says Mr. Grealy, who is also security director for the Fort Lauderdale public school system. "That's like locking the barn door after the horse is already stolen. Our feeling is that it is better to avoid a problem than to inherit it." Large schools need a security director to provide a line of communication between the students and administrators, he says. TO PROVIDE UNDERSTANDING "The purpose is to provide understanding and keep the student out of detention homes and help him get back into the classroom where he belongs," Mr. Grealy says. Trained security directors can help prevent large-scale racial incidents similar to the ones that erupted in three Florida schools recently-Escambia in Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, Boca Raton on the east coast, and Boca Ciega on the Gulf coast. "Administrators need to face up to the fact there is a problem and that it is a separate one educators are not trained to handle," he says. Prevention comes from understanding and "knowing the problem before it gets out of hand," Mr. Grealy says. Most of the nation's 45,000 school systems where problems occur "are hoping they'll just go away." Arson and violence in schools cost the nation at least a half billion dollars last year, he says. Security directors must have a close working relationship with law enforcement agencies and community services to keep ahead of the game," he says. In Fort Lauderdale, he says, "As soon as we get rumbles of something going on, we go in and talk to the people involved right away. Many times it's just a matter of finding out what the problem is and handling it. Our biggest problem is rumors of things that never happened," says Mr. Grealy. [From Time, Dec. 25, 1972] CHILDREN'S RIGHTS: THE LATEST CRUSADE Young Gerald Gault may have thought it was just a joke. He telephoned a housewife who lived near by in Globe, Ariz., and made what the Supreme Court subsequently called "remarks or questions of the irritatingly offensive, adolescent sex variety." The boy had no lawyer, the housewife never publicly testified, no hearing transcript was kept and no appeal was possible. It took a writ of habeas corpus to get a review of the case. Gault could have received a maximum jail term of two months if he had been an adult; since he was 15, he was committed to the State Industrial School until he became 21. Two years passed before the Supreme Court turned him loose in 1967, declaring that "neither the 14th Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone." That landmark ruling extended to a juvenile offender many rights that an adult can take for granted: the right to prompt notice of the charges against him, the right to consult a lawyer, to avoid self-incrimination and to crossexamine hostile witnesses. But though it was a breakthrough, the Gault ruling hardly signaled full legal status for children. "Children are the last niggers' of our society," says Larry Brown, director of the Boston Task Force on Children Out of School. But Gault at least got something started. As Brown observes: "We're on the verge of the last and greatest frontier in civil and legal rightsthe rights of children." Such rights are still relatively few. The problem is complicated by the differences between an infant and an adolescent, but the basic legal principle for all minors is that the parent knows best. In broad terms, says William Aikman of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, "the child's legal status is an amalgam of non-citizen, slave, overprotected pet and valuable chattel." He has no legal right to work, to choose his own friends, or to decide on his religion. Adds Henry Foster, who teaches family law at New York University: "Women used to need a guardian before they could enter a court. Now that feudal concept applies only to children." Dangers. The concept is not simply arbitrary. "Aristotle separated parental rule from constitutional rule for good reason," observes Monrad Paulsen, dean of the University of Virginia Law School. "He said parental rule is superior because it is based on the personal wisdom of the parents, and because it is guided by love." Unfortunately that is not always the case. Says Professor Sanford N. Katz of the Boston College Law School: "It is in the home that a child's rights are least protected." Back in 1646, a Massachusetts Bay Colony statute decreed that if a man had "a stubborn or rebellious son" of at least 16 years of age, he could bring him to the magistrate's court where "such a son shall be put to death." The times have grown milder, and yet in many cases the principle of parental rule has continued to defy common sense. Early in this century, for example, the Washington State Supreme Court threw out a suit by a girl named Lulu Roller against her father, who had raped her. The court's ground: "The rule of law prohibiting suits between parent and child is based on the interest that society has in preserving harmony in the domestic relations." As recently as last year, a 14-year-old Filipino girl in Los Angeles sought legal help because her parents ordered her to go back to the Philippines and marry someone they had picked out for her. "She asked me what legal recourse she had," recalls Attorney Riane Eisler, "and I had to tell her she had none." Far worse can happen when parents are unable to raise a child at all. Consider the case of Pam, now 16. Her mother was struggling to make ends meet after her husband deserted her, and Pam was difficult to handle. So the mother gave her up to the state. "Pam is very bright and fastastically sensitive," ex plains Chicago Attorney Patrick Murphy, "but she's not very attractive and that made it hard to find foster parents. So she was sent to a home for delinquents, where she had nothing much to do except watch TV. Then she was sent out to a foster home for a year, then back to the delinquent home, then to the Elgin State Hospital. She'd gotten into fights because other kids taunted her about her looks. At Elgin, things got worse, so they tied her to her bed for 28 days. When they let her go, she hit a matron, and they put her back in restraints for another 30 days. By this time she really needs psychotherapy . . ." Pam's story is particularly tragic, but it is only one among the many noncriminal cases the law must deal with. In Chicago's Cook County Juvenile Court, the 28,740 cases handled last year included only 3,500 serious offenses but fully 9,200 instances of parental neglect and juvenile runaways. In many cases, the runaways had reason to flee-cruelty, indifference or neglect. "Parents are allowed to beat children," says Sanford Katz, "and no action may be taken unless the child is seriously injured." Nationwide, there are more than 500,000 runaways each year. Rule. The courts are increasingly puzzled by their responsibilities. In Massachusetts, one intractable 15-year-old girl in a foster home was taken to court after she disobeyed her foster parents' rule that she could not talk to boys. She was held to be a "depraved child," but the court could not decide on any punishment. "What can you do," asks Dean Paulsen, "with someone who commits no crime but won't behave? We're starting to realize that training schools don't work. They don't train, and they breed crime. So there's a move toward letting these children go free, especially the 16- and 17-year-olds." But younger children cannot simply be turned loose, and that can lead to even bigger problems. Chicago was shocked recently by the case of Johnny Lindquist, age six. He was living happily in a foster home after his parents declared they could not provide for him. Then his parents changed their minds, and social workers returned the boy-even though he expressed fear of his father. Four months later, according to police, the father beat the boy senseless. Johnny's skull was crushed. After lying for four weeks in a coma, he died. As a result, an Illinois senate committee has been holding hearings on whether to change child-care laws to resemble those of California, where "due weight" is given to the child's own wishes about custody if he "is of sufficient age and capacity to reason." [From Newsweek, Jan. 15, 1973] THE NEW THREE R'S In St. Louis, 18-year-old Don Harris was studying quietly in his high school's study hall when an intruder demanded he give up his new black leather coat; when Harris hesitated, he was shot to death. In New York City, two teachers were raped on the same day in two different elementary schools. In San Francisco, a 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death after he teased a classmate about losing a game of dominoes to a girl. U.S. schools are fast developing an ominous new set of the three R's: rape, robbery and riot. "For teachers and students alike," says Sidney Thompson, principal of Los Angeles' Crenshaw High School, "the issue is no longer learning but survival." In one sixteen-day period last fall, fourteen New York City teachers were robbed or assaulted in school. Nearly 1,000 assaults on students and teachers were reported during 1972 in Miami, more than twice the total three years before. Los Angeles officials confiscated guns from no fewer than 40 students during one recent month, and the homecoming parade at the city's Jefferson High School ended with a shoot-out in which five students-including the homecoming princess-were wounded. As most school administrators see it, their agonizing safety problem springs from forces outside their terrain. "Our whole society is based on violence, even within the family," says one San Francisco principal. "Then people expect that youngsters should be above all this." More pointedly, schoolmen insist that the overwhelming percentage of violence in and around schools is perpetrated by young people who are not students and have no positive outlets for their time and energy. In Los Angeles, for instance, the unemployment rate for black nonstudents between the ages of 16 and 19 is a whopping 62 per cent. One of the reasons |