SOUND OFF: Even after string of threats, mass school surveillance is a step too far

To put things in perspective from where I’m coming from, I have a 13-year-old son who has just started Grade 8 at Sa-Hali this year, and I also have a 9-year-old son in Aberdeen Elementary. I am certainly very sensitive to the possible dangers children could be facing by potentially ill-meaning individuals toward the schools.

First, I should say that I am appalled at the behaviour of whoever these individuals are that have been led to believe that making threats to anything, a person or a school, is something they should do. Maybe it’s fun entertainment for some children who are completely ignorant of the costs of their actions — which I believe has been the case in a couple of the arrests this week. Maybe I’ve been mis-informed by the rumour mill, though — or maybe there is a more truly serious individual out there that is actually planning on wreaking havoc.

Neither, though, should we as society be looking to turn ourselves into a surveillance or police state simply because of the ignorance or ill-wishes of a few. The costs are too high. The U.K. led an over twenty-year experiment with it, and they found that their crime rate was not significantly lower than comparable countries that do not have such vast surveillance systems. The ACLU has further information on “what’s wrong with public video surveillance“.

While the idea sounds like it would help be a cure-all, and I absolutely want the safety of my children to be paramount, security theatre and robbing children of some of their ability to be care-free is not a great reaction. I don’t like playing into the whole idea that we should all be afraid, all the time.

As a possible compromise, and due to the serious problems that do seem to come up from such poor behaviour, I think maybe, at best, it could be helpful if a camera system could be in place temporarily to help stop such behaviour when it skyrockets like it has this month. I understand this would mean essentially building it out in all schools and then having just a few cameras that could be moved around from school to school as necessary.

If you haven’t had a look around some — or all — of the public schools lately, I’d invite you to check out a few and see how far down the slope of nasty, fear-driven protection they’re at already, and how there seems to be a negative effort taken to making the schools places that the students (and all others) should have respect for. At most, or all, they have electric metal shutters on all the windows now. As another single example, recently, at Valleyview Secondary (prior to the expansion announcement), they’ve removed all the landscaping — flowers, juniper bushes, and some trees — and either left weeds, pavement or just grass, making the spaces less and less like inviting learning centres and more and more like… prison?

Guess what’s happening? Less and less respect for the institutions themselves.

Surveillance? Maybe to help rectify some short term issues in temporary fashion only.

The actual issue(s) that need to be dealt with? Budget cuts? Poor respect for public property? Lack of consequences for poor behaviour? I think there’s some social issues that are more prominent, and some that the province is inadvertently creating itself.

Let’s not try and solve these by mass school surveillance, please.

Thanks for your time, and perhaps a further discussion somewhere at some point!

Adam Clark

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Adam Clark

SOUND OFF: Even after string of threats, mass school surveillance is a step too far

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