Al­though Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials and ad­min­is­tra­tors at the Pe­nal and Pleas­antville Sec­ondary Schools say there is no ev­i­dence of gang ac­tiv­i­ties at those schools, that should not be the end of the mat­ter.

They must ad­dress the con­cerns and al­lay the fears of par­ents and stu­dents by en­sur­ing that at these schools—and all the oth­ers that might be sus­cep­ti­ble—firm ac­tion is tak­en to weed out even the sem­blance of gang-re­lat­ed be­hav­iour.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions promised by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar should be ful­ly sup­port­ed by staff at these schools. As ed­u­ca­tors, ful­ly aware of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to main­tain their class­rooms as safe spaces for learn­ing, this should be their top pri­or­i­ty.

The truth is that pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools are vul­ner­a­ble to the in­ci­dences and ef­fects of the gangs that have in­fil­trat­ed so many parts of this coun­try. Gang­sters con­sid­er chil­dren to be prime tar­gets for re­cruit­ment and there have been re­ports that they are ac­tive­ly re­cruit­ing school chil­dren di­rect­ly in­to their ranks.

This isn’t a re­cent de­vel­op­ment.

Eye on De­pen­den­cy di­rec­tor Garth St Clair tes­ti­fied about this wor­ry­ing de­vel­op­ment at a vir­tu­al pub­lic in­quiry held by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs in 2021.

At the Cari­com Crime Sym­po­sium last year, So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox re­vealed that the 5,362 sec­ondary school stu­dents sus­pend­ed dur­ing the 2022/23 aca­d­e­m­ic year in­clud­ed a 12-year-old be­lieved to be a gang leader.

So, while there is a re­luc­tance by some ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers to ac­knowl­edge the grow­ing prob­lem of crim­i­nal gangs in schools—prob­a­bly due to a lack of well-de­fined cri­te­ria for as­sess­ing the el­e­ments of a crim­i­nal gang—the is­sue should not be ig­nored.

Even the per­cep­tion of gang-re­lat­ed prob­lems should be tack­led head-on be­cause the risk is that they will fes­ter and se­vere­ly dis­rupt the learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

Gang ac­tiv­i­ties, left unchecked and uniden­ti­fied in a school set­ting, can rapid­ly es­ca­late.

Over the past week, there has been grow­ing con­cerns over re­ports of threats and in­tim­i­da­tion, phys­i­cal and cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and oth­er dis­turb­ing be­hav­iours on school cam­pus­es. There have al­so been nu­mer­ous re­ports over the years of as­sault, van­dal­ism and il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ing in or near schools.

While there have been in­ter­ven­tions, they seem to work on­ly for a short while be­fore there are more erup­tions of vi­o­lence and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in­volv­ing stu­dents.

There is al­ways the threat of vi­o­lence and oth­er dis­rup­tive ac­tiv­i­ties in class­rooms and school­yards. How­ev­er, de­spite as­sur­ances by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, there is lit­tle ev­i­dence of a well-de­vel­oped, strate­gic, col­lab­o­ra­tive plan to tack­le vi­o­lence and crim­i­nal­i­ty in schools.

Be­fore the worst fears of par­ents and stu­dents are re­alised, there should be pre­ven­ta­tive and proac­tive mea­sures from ed­u­ca­tion and law en­force­ment of­fi­cials in­stead of the usu­al re­ac­tive steps.

That means de­vel­op­ing a gang in­ter­ven­tion process for schools based on pre­ven­tion, in­ter­ven­tion, and sup­pres­sion.

Rais­ing an aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing of the gang prob­lem among teach­ing staff should be one of the com­po­nents of a com­pre­hen­sive plan de­vel­oped with the in­volve­ment of law en­force­ment and oth­er qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als in the com­mu­ni­ty.

It will take strong col­lab­o­ra­tions and con­sis­tent ef­forts to pin­point po­ten­tial­ly prob­lem­at­ic sit­u­a­tions, iden­ti­fy and deal de­ci­sive­ly with gang-af­fil­i­at­ed stu­dents and en­sure the safe­ty and well-be­ing of young­sters who are at risk of be­com­ing their vic­tims.

That is why it is nec­es­sary to act now be­fore things get worse.