Although a spike in crime statistics involving Bayonne teens last year is partly due to new reporting regulations, according to Bayonne Police Chief Robert Kubert, cell phones and iPods have actually caused an increase in thefts.
To help deal with some of the issues that may lead to violence in and around the Bayonne public schools, the Board of Education earlier this month requested $58,000 from the state to hire a certified social worker/counselor to bolster its social work staff.
“Last year we saw a spike in crime involving students,” Kubert said. “So far this year, this has greatly decreased.”
Statistics don’t lie – or do they?
Kubert said the apparent increase in criminal behavior was partly the result of a statistical change in the way police departments are required to report incidents.
He said that new regulations demand more specific accounts of generally insignificant incidents that previously would have been handled in other ways by school officials.
“Some of the incidents [that] officers handled informally in the past now have to be reported under new stringent guidelines for the [state] Cops in Schools program,” Kubert said. “We’re asked to report many things that we wouldn’t have had to report in the past.”
Statistics showed that incidents involving juveniles last year jumped by more than a third between 2005 and 2006, from about 240 to about 335, raising the concerns of police and school officials.
Some of these were physical altercations between students outside after school had ended, but reports show that conflicts outside the schools are regular even when they do not escalate to the point of violence.
Kubert credits the reduction in violence to patrol modifications that the department instituted.
“We have four officers inside the high school as part of the Cops in Schools program,” he said. “What we did is assign more officers outside, and we ordered neighborhood patrols to go to the area of the high school at dismissal times.”
This has acted as a deterrent to student conflict, he said.
“By having police officers in the area, kids are less likely to act up,” he said. “I believe this is why we’ve had less violence this year than last.”
The lure of technology, the help of a counselor
Kubert, however, said theft is still a concern since more and more students are bringing electronic devices such as cellular telephones and iPods to schools.
“The more of these there are, the more opportunity there is for theft,” he said. “And we’re seeing these increasing.”
In seeking a counselor at the school, district officials believe conflicts can be mediated before they escalate into violence.
Also envisioned in the application to the state is the implementation of an anger management group, targeted counseling for students with a history of anger problems, and workshops dealing with violence prevention for elementary-school students who will soon graduate into the high school.
The district already has some related programs in place through the student center and through before-school and after-school curricula, but the additional support could help curb future violence, school officials said.