Tag Archives: PREA

Oct 20 2013

School Bullying Must Stop–A Proposal…

I have to phrase this in a way everyone will get it. School bullying and cyber-stalking are out of control. These web applications that generate fake phone numbers to enable a stalker to pull this MUST be shut down or tightly regulated. If ordered by a judge, they should have to surrender any information the requester for such numbers gave to the site in order to be able to access such programs. Any students caught using this for the purpose of bullying other students should be expelled and put on house arrest for the rest of the school year and forced to do their classwork at home. They should also be ordered to go into psychiatric counseling at the parents’ expense–not the states.

Schools should be required to report to the parents of the victim(s) any incidents (even if perceived) of bullying within two hours of becoming aware of the concurrence. ANY teacher or administrator taking it upon himself/herself who decides not to report the incident to the parents OR the police if severe, should face disciplinary action up to and including termination as well as fines up to $5000 and forfeiture of their certification(s). If the bullying is severe enough to call law enforcement, the police should immediately have to place the bully in restraints and arrest him/her/them. It should also be up to the parents of the VICTIM whether or not to file charges–not the police or the school district.

It is time to protect our children and to separate them from a culture that permits silence and the continued torment of other students. Many of the crimes (yes crimes!) they throw under the label of “bullying” include physical assault, psychological torment, and/or sexual assault or molestation. Often it also includes some sort of verbal sexual harassment and/or repeated incidents.  These are all things adults can either go to jail for and/or lose their jobs for.  When children commit these acts on other children they should be strictly dealt with. There should truly be “zero tolerance” for this behavior in the schools.

This is only part of what I’m proposing to stem the tide of this garbage. How many more students are going to kill themselves before the end of the school year? I am wondering because right now there is NOTHING firm and rigid in a legal approach that has been put  in place to protect them in most states at all.  What are your thoughts? Can you think of any ways to help stop this? I do realize that my proposal is modeled somewhat after the Prison Rape Elimination Act, but since most of what I have seen occur when working for the corrections industry tends to remind me of what I saw in public school yards, that is why I came up with this.

The PREA gave parents and family members of bullied and extorted offenders an avenue to seek remedy within the laws of the land should officers neglect to report possible rapes and take measures to prevent offender suicide. Since so many bullying victims either attempt suicide or actually do it, this must be addressed specifically also.  It is for that reason I strongly support sending bullying victims to a counselor to ensure their mental well-being.  This is especially true if the student is known to be homosexual. Many do get picked on for their sexual orientation and this must also be stopped. No child deserves this treatment.  As for measures like “lunch detention”, believe me, they are a joke. Those things do not work on a bully because a lot of the time to them, being in lunch detention or ISS is a “badge of honor” just like going to medium custody is an honor for an offender in prison when they bully others. In fact, a lot of the reason these measures do not work on many bullies is that some of them come from families that have family members which are incarcerated.

It is bad enough that many cannot even bring themselves to discuss this with their own parents out of fear, but school is the last place they should fear going to. We must make these institutions safer for ALL children and this is the only proposal I can think of to actually get the job done–or at least start the process of making a change for the better.

These suicides can be prevented if teachers and administrators are specifically trained in what to watch for, so I propose that training them to notice certain signs (unkempt appearance, giving away possessions, statements that could lead one to think they might harm themselves or others in retaliation, etc…).

May 6 2013

It Is Time to Criminalize Bullying at School…

Yes…I have been quiet as of late.  I have contemplated this school bullying issue again and again.  I will say this and you can find out for yourself.  Take the time to look through a high school rule book in Texas and compare it to the rules for offenders in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (which is in the offender rule book).  The similarities might shock you.

Why is it in schools they worry about the peach-fuzz Johnny is growing on his chin or the piercings Jenny has in her eyebrow but they say the bullying, which is actually either physical assaults or emotional abuse–not to mention cyber-bullying is a “phase”?  That, for lack of a better word, is bullshit.

The teachers are the “officers”–powerless to defend themselves and other students from bullies for fear of litigation or losing their job.  The Texas Youth Commission officers are not much different.  The administrators are like the prison wardens, only the prison warden has tools at his/her disposal to stop offenders from being bullied to the point of suicide and such.

Since the days of John Dewey, the school climate has drastically changed.  America has a growing population of gang kids and/or kids of hardened criminals rising up in the ranks of the students and they are creating problems on the campuses.  Family members often ignore or encourage the behavior, blaming everything on the teachers and admins or blaming the other kid (the victim).  When the hell did we start conditioning or students to be “good inmates”?  School should be a sanctuary for learning, not institutions for control and indoctrination.

The prisons have the Prison Rape Elimination Act in place to help protect offenders.  If society is so willing to protect them, why is it that we are failing in this nation to protect our children?  I think every parent who has a son or daughter being bullied should actually study the PREA.  The language in it is strong, but a new act can be drafted based on that to protect students from bullies.  Here are a few things I propose…

1.  Any time a student is found to have been bullied, the school must notify parents within 2 hours of becoming aware of it.

2. If a student has been physically assaulted, the bully is to be treated the same way as if he/she committed the crime of assault off-campus–meaning that being at school does NOT exempt students from obeying the law and does not give schools the option to NOT report crimes to the police department.  If they have to report child abuse when suspected in the home, then this should also be a requirement.

3. The school must report and prosecute all physical assaults and take measures to fully protect the victims of physical assaults of any nature, which includes sexual assaults.

4. Sexual assaults ON CAMPUS are to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and if it occurs on school property, administration should have to fill out incident packets to turn over to police officers for use in the prosecution of  the perpetrator within 2 hours of becoming aware of the assault(s).

5. Victims of bullying should never have to be moved to another school for protection. It is the bullies that should be split up and sent to other schools at their parents’ expense. Hit the parents in the pocket-book, they will learn to control their children.

6. Any school official not reporting bullying incidents to parents and/or taking proper action against what amounts to be criminal acts should face automatic disciplinary hearings and possible loss of licenses from the Texas Education Agency.  This will stop a lot of these administrators from enabling and becoming complacent.  They should also be able to face penal charges in severe cases and civil charges in the lower degree offenses if not reporting them.

7.  The way I see it, their rights end where the next victim commits suicide over the issue.  In cases where it is found that parents enabled their son/daughter to torment another student, they should be fined in successive amounts for their negligence in each offense. Money collected from fines can be used to pay for supplies for needy students and uniforms (if schools require those).

8. It should be expressly stated in the act that no teacher or school official will face penalties under the law for taking appropriate actions to protect themselves and other students from those who seek to harm them during an incident.  This way they can step in to break up altercations and such.  The staff should not be expected to take beatings any more than the bullied child.  This would give districts some teeth in dealing with bad situations.

9. All teachers and administration officials will be required to take PMAB classes to learn proper ways of restraining violent, out of control students.  Parents will sign an agreement that they know teachers are trained in this and that if their student gets out of control, they can be restrained, releasing the district from liability.

10. Students with severe behavior disorders that require psych meds will either take those meds or not attend school until they do so. Parents will make sure this happens or face child neglect charges.

11. Students prone to violent outbursts will not be educated in the regular classroom after 2 outbursts, but will be taught in a separate classroom provided and monitored closely.  After 2 outbursts this will be permanent.  This is only reserved for students with severe behavioral issues.

12. The profession of teaching in the State of Texas will become an “at will” position in order to effectively enforce bullying policies.  This means when educators aren’t doing their job with these bullies, they can be fired without all the union bullshit. If failing to report assaults and such to the police and to the victims’ parents, they should face the same penalties for that as for failing to report child abuse.

Anyway, these are just ideas I’m tossing around in my head. What do you think?

Feb 4 2013

The Escalation of School Bullying and Expanding the PREA to Stem the Tide…

Before I begin I am putting a link up here so that readers can see what the PREA is and what it does:   http://nicic.gov/prea

I want to begin  by saying that this act was put into place due to the suicides of offenders in the penal system because their pleas for help after being assaulted and/or raped were largely ignored.  In Texas, one high-ranking administrator was fired after an offender tried to report an incident to him said, “Well, nobody told you to come to prison.”   The young man had written detailed letters home to his family about the violence he endured and the last letter written detailed why he was killing himself.

Now let me tell you how the PREA is used to prevent suicides:

1.  When an assault (whether rape is involved or not), an offender is placed in protective custody and an investigation ensues. Often the offender will not talk about it for fear of retaliation regardless of housing.  News travels faster in prison than it does on a television network. Often offenders know when some riot is about to kick off LONG before anyone else does–on units OTHER than their own.

2.  Once in protective custody, the offender is offered counseling, alternative housing, and in extreme cases, unit to unit transfer. Some of these are offender “trade-offs” where two offenders can be switched out in different states to complete sentences.

3.  When an offender is suicidal, he/she is IMMEDIATELY taken into protective custody and placed in a cell with a suicide blanket only.  Nothing the offender can harm himself/herself with is placed in that cell.   Within 24-48 hours on most units, the offender is then sent to a hospital equipped with psychiatric facilities.  Not all offenders who threaten suicide have been raped or sexually assaulted. Many are bullied for commissary items, money, etc…They are given the same protections as an offender who is a sexual offender when this gets reported.

4.  It provides stiff penalties for staff members who either fail to report such incidents listed above, within 2 hours of the incident becoming known, OR face any number of disciplinary consequences.  It also provides that officers MUST count LIVING, BREATHING bodies–even at night when doing cell counts.  If someone looks like they are asleep, they must wake them–PERIOD.  If an offender is found dead on the next shift, the autopsy will reveal how long he/she was deceased and there is no excuse for failing to attempt waking an offender during count time at night.  They must also make sure that the OFFENDER is in the cell and hasn’t escaped by waking them up as well. Yes, offenders do stuff pillows and mattresses in their bunk and  try to break out.

Now let’s see how this can be applied to the school systems in this country, given the fact that many students now come from families with members who are locked up and/or are part of a gang affiliation.  In fact, children’s visits to a prison should be very limited. I would say no more than once a month for a child visitor.  There are too many sexual predators running around. Families would raise hell at first, but it is not the correctional officer’s job to baby-sit.

As far as school districts go, the barriers that prevent law enforcement from prosecuting these bullying cases need to be removed. Here is how this can be done while expanding the PREA to the public education system.

1.  With the growing number of children of gang affiliated families on campus, the school officials need to be aware of who these students are AND if they are involved in gang activity.  To that end, law enforcement officials, child protective services and the districts need to work together to reduce the impact such families have in the education system if they are known to be involved in illegal activities.   A true zero tolerance policy should always include automatic suspension and/or expulsion of students engaging in gang activity and/or illegal activity on campus.  In short, if they can face free world charges for what they pull at school, then the school district should be REQUIRED to report the activities within 2-4 hours of the details becoming known–unless it can endanger students and teachers–then it should be REQUIRED to bring in the authorities.

2.  If a student is suicidal or is suspected to be suffering from depression due to being bullied–either at school and/or online, the district should be required to immediately get these students to the school counselors so that they can make appropriate referrals to mental health services.  Parents should be notified IMMEDIATELY if this is the case–in a letter and/or in person via a conference.

3.  If a student is known to have been bullied, it is the bullies that should be punished and NEVER, EVER, EVER  the victim.  If the incident involves a sexual assault, then offer the victim a campus to campus transfer option–even if it means the student will go to school in another district.  Make the bullies be put in different schools rather than their target(s) when possible.  By breaking the social unit of these bullies up, the chances of the student being bullied again go down slightly.  Those who commit violent acts on campus should get an automatic jail sentence AFTER the time spent in juvenile facilities if applicable.

4.   Eliminate lunch detention (especially if not held in a classroom rather than the cafeteria) and mass movement at lunch.  Why?  To many gang kids, lunch detention is a badge of honor–much like when an offender gets sent to medium to high custody is.  They will continue to socialize anyway, throw gang signs and act up at lunch, so it does no good.  This is behavior mimicked in prisons too. The problem with mass movement is that things can get out of hand there too.  At the elementary level, have carts with DISPOSABLE trays and utensils  taken to the classrooms.  Using disposable trays will cut costs of excessive water usage.  After they finish eating, let them go to “reading circle” or go to the playground a bit if weather permits.  This will cut some of the garbage that goes on during movement–because it will be almost ELIMINATED.  To enforce a good lunch detention (if a district MUST have that) a separate classroom with cubicles needs to be used for this.

5.  At the upper grade levels (8-12) close campuses for lunch. That way stuff isn’t being brought in as much for them to “sell” and trade.

6.  Go to uniforms!!!! This is important!  That way gang students have a harder time locating each other. Crime rates on campuses with this policy in place have seen crime rates drop by as much as 85% in some districts!   This isn’t about a students’ rights or respecting individuals’ rights–it is about protecting others in a system that is greatly flawed. No wonder teachers burn out within 5 years in many states…

7.  Give teachers the authority to take the classroom back. Have them trained in self-defense if they want and/or make PMAB training mandatory so that they can restrain students who are out of control.  This training is used to teach others how to properly restrain people who are out of control so that they don’t get hurt and it does come in handy for students who are prone to getting out of control.

No solution is perfect but it has to begin somewhere and to me, that place lies within the PREA.  The links below are to other articles related to this issue.  Not all of them involve school bullying, but all the bullying in society needs to be brought to a halt! Many of these were reported on other networks as well.  Thank you for your time.

Related articles
Apr 30 2012

The Bullying Issue…AGAIN

Alright, this is for those who have read my past blogs on bullying.  I have now come up with some ideas on how to resolve a lot of this, and it came to me when I found out a friend’s daughter was getting bullied and the school switched her classes without telling anyone.

First, in TX, that is NOT supposed to happen. Parents are supposed to be notified prior to schedule changes–esp. mid semester.

For one:  All schools should be required to report any bullying incident to the parent(s) of all parties involved within an hour of becoming aware of it.  That way the PARENTS can actually be involved in addressing the issue.

Two: NO VICTIM should ever have the same classes, lunch break or any extra curricular activity with the bully. Putting the victim in a class with the person who abused them is akin to putting a rape victim in the same room with his/her attacker. It is psychologically devastating and it is abusive of schools to do this to a child who has been bullied.

Three: IT should always be up to the parent(s) of the victim(s) whether or not to file charges–NOT THE DISTRICT. It is their child getting hurt.

Four: Bullies should not be allowed to ride the school buses. Make their parents responsible for their child’s transportation.  Bullies tend to act out on a bus a lot.

Five:  every state should add sections with protections like those mentioned above. At least it’s a start…

Given the fact that many of the public schools now feel like prisons to the victims, I say an extension of the PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) should be expanded to include a rule that public school personnel who fail to tell parents and take measures to protect the victim should be held liable–especially if they fail to report the incident. If that incident is a sexual assault of some type they should be required to tell not only the parents but the police themselves.   Even if it is not a rape, but molestation of some type, it is still a crime punishable under the law. However many districts choose to sweep this under the rug–unless it’s an adult doing this to a child.

If steps like these are not taken soon, then it is children who are victims of violence and emotional abuse that are being silenced and then left behind. Think about that. This being said, I feel that aggravated suicide must be made a punishable crime in all 50 states.

The student population has a growing number of children from gang families coming into the school systems. Many of those have family members that are incarcerated and have learned their violent behaviors at home. You also have “average kids” who bully because they are abused at home.  These things must be addressed in order to make a safe learning environment for all children. Any district failing to enact measures to protect these children should be subject to loss of federal funding also.

This bullying which leads to violence, death and aggravated suicide must stop and it must stop now.