After the alarming death of 14-year-old Christopher Jones last year, Both education and law enforcement officials say gangs are rapidly spreading throughout the state’s suburban jurisdictions and are finding recruits in both high school and middle schools. Christopher Jones was riding his bike one afternoon in Crofton when he was suddenly attacked and killed.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch’s answer is a bill that would institutionalize communication between schools, the police, the Department of Human Resources and the Department of Juvenile Services at the first signs that kids might be getting in trouble. The bill expands the list of crimes that courts must report to schools to include lower offenses – malicious destruction of property and second-degree assault – that can be indicators of gang activity.
This would require school officials to babysit consider the psychological and physical well-being of a victim of bullying or other abuse when deciding whether to assign him or her to attend the same school or ride the same bus as the aggressor. It would also require every middle and high school to designate a point person for safety issues and requires all school districts to devise policies to deal with gangs or gang-like activities.
There is opposition to the proposed bill from the American Civil Liberties Union, the state public defender’s office and other advocates. They oppose a provision that would require courts to notify schools any time they place a child under the supervision or custody of the Department of Human Resources or the Department of Juvenile Services. Delegate Busch feels that schools should be aware of such a significant change in the child’s life. The bill also then requires schools to tell the supervising agency if the student has become habitually truant. This kind of information sharing is now optional and, according to Mr. Busch’s office, happens sporadically at best.
The advocates who question this provision say the bill doesn’t clearly specify what the schools should do with that information, and they worry that it will be used as a reason to suspend, expel or otherwise punish the student – which they say has already happened in some cases when the courts did share that information. The advocates fear that the children could be stigmatized, shamed or humiliated in cases when their offenses had nothing to do with gangs.
Source: Baltimore Sun
