Quote:
Originally posted by mu_agd
for prom weekend we all rent houses on the cape and they threatened to call the cops and tell them to patrol the areas that we were in because there would be lots of underage drinking and they wanted us to get caught.
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Of course, everyone in town has an opinion about why the hazing occurred. One of the trains of thought relates to this. In our district, the administrators tend not to involve the police when they are aware of illegal activity. The thought is that the kids are young, they make mistakes and don't deserve the long term effects of a criminal record. The biproduct of this approach is that the students think that they are above the law.
The solution being discussed is to create a teen court, with teens being judged by their peers. Apparently there are three communities in the northern suburbs of Chicago who've gone this route. The teen crimes would not get lost in the shuffle of the Cook County court system, which includes Chicago. And while consequences would be real, they might not have the same permanent effect on their lives. It's been said that the battery charges related to the GBN incident would not qualify for such a court because of the injuries that were inflicted. But the thinking is that if kids are punished for less serious actions, things might not escalate to the extent they did on May 4 because the community would have established a clearer definition of right and wrong.
Another concept being discussed is a focus on community civility. There are a lot of residents with high pressure jobs who are accustomed to getting their way. People aren't very nice. So the task force wants to teach the adults how to behave so that we demonstrate respect to our offspring.
Our high school played GBN last Friday--we were the home team. There seems to be a fair amount of animosity against GBN at GBS. Security was incredible. GBS students weren't allowed near the visitors' bleachers and the GBN kids weren't allowed on our side. There were several police cars at the game. Some of the GBS boys were wearing homemade tshirts saying things like "something smells fishy around here". It was very sad. It reminded me of some of my son's hockey games when we played in some of the "rougher" suburbs. And we lost (no surprise there).
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