If news reports from the UK are any indicator, kids are becoming a menace. Not in the usual delinquent ways either. People are getting killed, often over trivial grievances. A spate of school stabbings lately raised alarm among parents . Some are so concerned about the physical safety of their children that a company named Bladerunner has come up with a slash-proof school blazer, lined with kevlar. Australian parents are eager to get their kids into protective school gear also - story here.

Keen to play down any panic, the UK government has taken pains to point out that the actual statistics on school knife incidents are low. That may be so, but their stats don't include incidents involving school age kids that have happened off school property and outside school hours. Nor do the stats reflect real world perceptions. There is clearly genuine alarm among parents who are familiar with their schools and neighborhoods.

Decca Aikenhead writing in The Guardian offered this insightful take on the situation ...

I'm always keen on any evidence that today's teenagers are basically no different to their predecessors. And I'm generally inclined to put the moral panic about hoodies down to the perennial paranoia of each generation, which always finds its successor uniquely alarming. But by yesterday, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that was becoming increasingly untenable.

Last weekend, a father in Warrington spotted teenagers messing about with vehicles outside his house - but when he went outside to confront them, they beat him to death. On Monday, a young London man died after confronting a teenager for throwing a half-eaten chocolate bar into his sister's car at traffic lights. He only asked the boy why he'd done it, but the teenager pulled a knife, before felling him with a fatal punch. After several similar murders in the past year - of family men simply asking youngsters to keep the noise down- it's increasingly clear that we're dealing with something unprecedented. A shaken neighbor in Warrington told reporters, "It's got so that you can't leave your house at night.

In Toronto over the past few years that have been recurrent reports of school stabbings and shootings. Teachers are afraid to break ranks to speak candidly about what is going on. Those who do speak off the record paint a picture of a hallway culture that is out-of-control with gang members from the local neighborhoods mingling with students. They speak of bullying, intimidation and vandalism.

Get tough solutions are routinely mocked by the defenders of the system who keep coming up with educational reforms that do little or nothing to address the core problems . Meanwhile kids keep getting shot, knifed and harassed.

It's a difficult problem to address. The solution isn't only to simply increase security and enforcement, with metal detectors and cameras in evidence. Who wants to attend a school that is like an armed fortress.

When violence occurs, schools are often caught off-guard. Teachers claim they didn't see it coming. Yet when the cases are reviewed after-the-fact, it becomes clear that there were warning signs that should have been acted on. After the Columbine High School killings, teachers said that they knew that some of the kids who were involved didn't fit in and seemed "weird". In the majority of instances these perceptions don't amount to much - the kid just might be into an alternative lifestyle and not into violence of any sort. Being "weird" is no crime.

Part of the problem though is that schools aren't set up to do pre-emptive screening and don't have the mechanisms to deal with a student who is clearly disturbed (as opposed to simply being weird). The writings of Virginia Tech killer, Seung Wei Cho, contained graphic and disturbing descriptions that were noted but not given the type of close attention required.

Reactionary measures that put the emphasis on security aren't enough. There need to be more procedures in place that allow for proactive intervention so that problems can be addressed before disaster strikes.

About the Author

Aidan Maconachy is a freelance writer and artist based in Ontario.. You can visit his blog at http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/