About the Benefits of Metal Detectors in Schools
From big cities to smaller communities, the issue of metal detectors in schools stirs conversation and disagreement. One side of the question looks at the benefits for schools; as school districts search for ways to reduce or deter violence, metal detectors have a role to play.
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Prevent Violence
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Incidents such as the killings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., underscore that students bring weapons to school. Although most people think of violence taking place solely at the high school level, elementary and middle schools are not immune to this issue. Metal detectors, when used appropriately, can contribute to a drop in incidents of violence on school grounds.
Weapons in School
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Students at every grade level have brought an illegal weapon to school; that weapon might have been a gun or a knife. School districts across the country have developed policies regarding weapons on school grounds. These schools have a "zero-tolerance" policy, which forbids weapons of any kind being brought onto their campuses. Even when a student has forgotten about a tiny penknife on a keyring, the school and district consider that penknife to be a weapon. They confiscate it and the student is subject to discipline within district guidelines. Sometimes, the metal detectors indicate the presence of such a weapon; other times, students report that the student has such a weapon in her possession.
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At Every School Level
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Students in a Curriculum Technology and Education Reform (CTER) class at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign conducted a study on the incidence of weapons and violence in the schools. They noted that violence with the use of weapons is inflicted on young students and teachers. Sixty percent of elementary-age students report having been bullied, robbed or physically attacked, and 1 in 10 students expelled in the 1998-1999 school year for bringing a gun onto campus was an elementary-age student, in a USA Today report by Greg Toppo that was cited in the CTER study.
Deterrence
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Metal detectors on school campuses can help to reduce the numbers of students bringing weapons onto school grounds. In the CTER study, one statistic from the Green Pastures Center (Oklahoma) reported that the number of weapons brought on campus by students "declined by more than half in just one year." Criminal trespass incidents dropped by 35 percent, according to the Green Pastures Center.
Confiscation
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Metal detectors help school police officers to confiscate more weapons that have been brought onto campus. School police officers confiscated 15 guns and 294 weapons in the 1991-1992 school year; in 1992-1993, 42 weapons were confiscated; in both 1993-1994 and 1995-1996, four guns were taken away from students. This was reported by Robert Johnson in 2000 in the CTER study.
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