Moronic metal-detector scheme

How bad an idea is this?

Metal detectors are to be installed at hundreds of schools in England as part of a drive to reduce knife crime.

I see six objections.
1. It's not the job of schools to stop young people carrying weapons. It should be the job of the police. I say "should be" because they seem to have lost sight of this.
2. Cost. The money spent on these, and on searching pupils could be spent on other things, like teaching them something.
3. Effectiveness. The kids most likely to be caught by this scheme are the terrified, bullied ones who carry knives only for self-defence. The real criminals will either switch from knives to less detectable weapons such as acid or pepper sprays, or simply not turn up to school.
4. Possible counter-productivity. Put yourself in the shoes of a rebellious but law-abiding teenager. Mightn't he think: "if I'm going to be treated like a criminal, I might as well act like one." I would.
5. Changing the culture of schools. Metal-detectors send a message: schools are not places of learning, devoted to the cooperative pursuit of knowledge. They are merely yet another site at which the iron fist of the state treats its subjects with contempt and suspicion.
6. Liberty. This represents a growing tendency to harrass and stigmatize law-abiding people. Everyone is to be treated like a criminal. Except, that is, criminals.

Comments

[sanbikinoraion]

Amen.

[Laban]

It's worse than that. They seem to have given up on culture and morality.

Kids get drunk and kick a guy to death ? Ah yes - the problem is the easy availability of alcohol to teenagers.

Kids getting stabbed ? Find a way to stop them carrying knives.

I guess it's much easier to install a netal detector than to start asking questions about why an increasing number (still a small number though) of young people think it's OK to 'shank' someone or kick them to death.

Thirty odd years back most boys at my school carried a knife. Didn't occur to us to use them on each other.

And wasn't a sheath knife in the belt part of Scout uniform ? Without mass slaughter at St George's day parades ?

[Griswold]

The 'professionals' will deposit the knife in the schoolyard or some other convenient hiding place and collect after lessons.

The knife attacks mostly take place outside of school premises.

This is just headline 'something must be done'tokenism.

[James Schneider]

Absurd. Why can't we leave kids alone. Like the fingerprinting in the Holland Park School.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/29/school_fingerprints_students/

[dearieme]

You, as a Marxist, may well agree with me that the only thing that we could usefully learn from the Bolsheviks is how to deal with feral children. They were good at that.

[kio]

In general I agree. Situation is Moscow, Russia is similar and similar measures are being planned. The problem is that the next natural step of your offer is to remove police from the streets. Everything is applicable as you have proposed.

[Tom Freeman]

7. Potential for kids to screw other kids over by slipping knives into their bags before they go through.

[Ian Bertram]

8. Potential for general mayhem as kids try to find out how big a piece of metal they can slip in before the detector finds it on a general buggeration principle
9. All sorts of non-metallic substitutes will be found and used.

[Matt Munro]

Good post. I disagree with number 4 though, labelling theory is in my view, utter tosh.
Also bring back hanging, and the birtch, and national service, get the little buggers breaking rocks in the hot sun like the man Joe Strummer said. Whats needed is a return to good old fahioned authoritarianism, Iron Fist in the Iron glove and all that.

Toodle pip, time for my tablets.

[redpesto]

"The real criminals will either switch from knives to less detectable weapons such as acid or pepper sprays, or simply not turn up to school."

Or simply have edged weapons made out of wood or plastic. (I'm assuming the Home Office doesn't watch any prison dramas?)

[Mark Edwards]

If we stopped being a society of victims then there would be no stabbings!

[Slowjoe]

Metal detectors are actually magnetisable metal detectors.

Use a non-ferous metal blade and you'll be fine. May not hold a cutting edge as well, but fine for puncture wounds.

[tin whiskers]

Hi,
I guess it's much easier to install a netal detector than to start asking questions about why an increasing number (still a small number though) of young people think it's OK to 'shank' someone or kick them to death.