Surveillance in Schools: Safety vs. Personal Privacy

Metal Detectors

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Introduction

Surveillance through the use of metal detectors has become a controversial issue in many school districts. Some argue that metal detectors are intrusive, unconstitutional, ineffective, evasive, and unnecessary. Others argue that metal detectors are non-intrusive, efficient, and essential to create safer schools. Who is right? Actually, neither party is probably accurate since they both express such extremist views. Metal detectors, used responsibly, can be highly effective in preventing violence in schools. However, they do not work as a magic wand; they do not single-handedly eliminate violence in schools, and they do nothing to prevent violence outside of the schools. Still, if used in conjunction with other types of surveillance, such as video surveillance, locker and parking lot searches, Internet tracking, profiling, and violence-prevention programs, metal detectors work to provide a safer learning environment for our students. That is not to say that all schools need metal detectors or that metal detectors should be used to inspect every student every day. “The ideal violence-prevention policy will likely be different for each school….[T]he only reasonable agenda for fighting school violence is to encourage individual schools to experiment and find what ‘works’ in their particular circumstances” (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Whether or not a school should use metal detectors for surveillance is a decision that should be made by school officials. If they do decide to use this method, though, “governed by reasonable guidelines,” they will almost certainly find that the method is both effective and legal (Johnson, 2000).

What are Metal Detectors?

A metal detector is, simply, an electronic instrument used to locate specific types of metal. The capabilities of metal detectors vary according to the specific needs of the consumer. In addition to recreational purposes, metal detectors are used for airport and building security, event security, item recovery, archaeological exploration, and geological research (Tyson, 2003). Metal detectors also come in several physical styles--“beachcomber,” hand-held, and mounted styles can all be effective for their intended use.

“Beachcomber” metal detectors are designed to assist consumers in their quest for hidden treasures. They are lightweight but somewhat large and awkward if used for other purposes (such as security).

Hand-held detectors are smaller and less obtrusive than beachcomber detectors. They are also usually “powerful and sensitive enough to detect all concealed metal weapons, including the smallest knives and guns” (“Garrett,” n.d.; Tamiami, 2002).

Mounted, or walk-through, detectors are not small, but they are even less invasive than the others since the person and/or items to be inspected need only to pass through the detector without any close personal contact. These detectors have numerous sensors, each sensor’s sensitivity rate being set at the proper level to detect specific metals and eliminate interferences such as “x-ray devices, video monitors and communications equipment” (“Walk-Through,” n.d.). Mounted detectors are typically more expensive than the others, but they are built to endure high traffic, hard weather, and rough handling (“Walk-Through,” n.d.).

Should Metal Detectors Be Used in Schools?

Overview of Violence in Schools: Is There a Need for Surveillance of Weapons in Schools?

Unarguably, school violence is a problem that cannot be regarded as trivial. The problem of students bringing weapons to school is an issue that will not go away by itself. As acknowledged in the trial of People versus Pruitt in 1996, “Judges cannot ignore what everybody else knows: violence and the threat of violence are present in the public schools….School children are harming each other with regularity” (qtd. in Johnson, 2000). Obviously, this is not true in every school district, but the point being presented is that violence in schools must be eradicated.

Inner cities have the highest rate of violence reported. “The problems of urban schools are particularly acute and are complicated by their connection to the prevalence of poverty, crime, and despair in America’s cities” (Oneill, n.d.). More specifically, students in inner-city schools attended by “predominantly lower SES minority children” are two times as likely to be victimized through violence than students in suburban or rural schools ("Facts about Violence," 2000). In the early 1990s, over 50 students from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn were killed, some of the murders taking place at the school (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Many inner-city school districts have to deal with the issue of weapons in the school on a day-to-day basis. Seven years ago, 17 percent of inner-city schools reported at least one serious crime while only 8 percent of rural schools reported such an incident ("Another Take on School Violence," 1999). The schools with high crime rates have a higher need for metal detectors than other schools, and they may feel the need to use metal detectors on a regular basis—maybe even everyday on every student—in order to maintain a safe learning environment for the students.

Still, violence exists at other school districts outside of the inner city. The famous Columbine High School tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, in April of 1999 and the shooting that took place at a high school in Conyers, an “upscale suburb of Atlanta, [Georgia],” in May of 1999 were two such incidents (Clark, 1999). These non-urban schools did not fit the stereotypical profile of a potentially violent institution because of their location, but the violence or potential for violence was there, nonetheless. These types of schools may find that metal detectors work effectively for them on an as-need basis, like in cases in which individualized suspicion arises.

It is also important to note that violence does not just occur at the high school level. Students and teachers alike become victims of violence in some elementary schools as well. According to the National Household Education Survey in 1993, 60 percent of elementary students and 77 percent of middle or junior high students reported the occurrence of victimization through robbery, bullying, or physical attack at school. In addition, 10 percent of elementary students and 12 percent of middle or junior high school children reported that they had been bullied; and four to five percent of elementary and junior high school children reported that they had been physically attacked (Mary Jo Nolin, Elizabeth Davies, and Kathryn Chandler of Student Victimization in School: Statistics in Brief, 1995, qtd. in Volokh & Snell, 1998). More recently, federal figures show that one in every ten students who were expelled in the 1998-99 school year for bringing a gun to school was an elementary student (Toppo, 2003). On February 29, 2000, at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, one six-year-old shot and killed another six-year-old student with a semi-automatic that he had brought to school (Buhrmann, 2000). Students are not the only victims either: "the percentage of elementary school teachers who said they were attacked rose from 4.9% to 5.5%" from 1993-94 school year to the 1999-2000 school year (Toppo, 2003). This horrible exposure to violence at such a young age is alarming, and some type of surveillance should be implemented to prevent it from occurring at school—for the sake of the students and the teachers.

A violent act here and there does not necessarily label an entire school district as “violent” though. Many of the incidents named above have become sensationalized because of the school’s history of non-violence, or at least its lack of serious violence. School officials need to consider many aspects of the district’s learning environment before grabbing up the latest surveillance technology to solve their problems, particularly if the school does not really even have a violence problem but rather just an isolated incident. “As Rutgers University criminologist Jackson Toby puts it, ‘everyday school violence is more predictable than the sensational incidents that get widespread media attention, because everyday school violence is caused at least in part by educational policies and procedures governing schools and by how those policies are implemented in individual schools” (qtd. in Volokh & Snell, 1998).

Still, we cannot ignore that 5 percent of 12^th grade students have been “purposefully injured” and that 12 percent were threatened with injury by the use of a weapon while in school during the past twelve months (Johnson, 2000); and we certainly cannot ignore that nine percent of male high school students admit to having brought a weapon to school within the past 30 days or that three percent of high school seniors admit to bringing a gun to school within the past 30 days (Johnson, 2000). Statistics vary from school to school, but the fact is that violence is prevalent in many school districts throughout the nation, and each community needs to be aware of its own level of violence. Once a community determines the reality of violence in its school district, it needs to take action to arrest the violence and prevent it from recurring. One method that can be effective in curtailing the use of weapons in schools is surveillance through metal detectors.

Benefits and Drawbacks: Do Metal Detectors Really Work?

Some argue that metal detectors do not work. Michael Ferraraccio (1999) believes that the installation of metal detectors can actually be detrimental to a student’s learning experience, causing him/her to find the school buildings and the people in them dangerous. He poses the question, “Is the installation of metal detectors more likely to alleviate fear, or foster fear?” Others who believe that metal detectors are not effective base their arguments more on statistics of failure. For instance, David Marcus (1999) recalls an incident at Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., where “metal detectors couldn’t prevent a fatal stabbing just outside the building” in 1998. Another incident occurred in April of this year in the gymnasium at John McDonogh High School in New Orleans, where four teenagers opened fire, killing a 15-year-old boy and wounding three girls. “It was not immediately clear how the gun got through metal detectors and guards at the school. Students and school security officers said there was a hole in the fence near the gym” (“Gunmen Get Past…,” 2003).

Such incidents do occur, unfortunately, because metal detectors, used as the sole violence-prevention method, do not completely cure the disease of violence in schools. Metal detectors can do only what they profess to do: detect metal. Even so, many students have found ways to bring weapons into schools, regardless of the surveillance through metal detectors. Education expert Mary Ann Raywid claims “she saw students intentionally play games where the goal was to hide things from security cameras, and shield knives and guns from metal detectors. The games even made kids who wouldn't be interested in bringing guns or knives to school compete just to see if they could ‘beat the machine’” (qtd. in Oakes, 2000). William Behre, an assistant professor at the College of New Jersey's Department of Special Education, who is studying violence in midwestern schools, said that “he has had students teach him personally how to get weapons past metal detectors” (Oakes, 2000).

However, they are effective in reducing violent crimes in schools. In 1992, the Green Pastures Center in Oklahoma discovered that the number of students bringing weapons to schools declined by more than half in just one year and that violent crimes and criminal trespass dropped by 35 percent. “[S]chool police attributed the decline to the presence of more metal detectors” (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Robert Johnson (2000) reports that the Chicago schools confiscated 15 guns and 294 weapons in 1991-92, 42 weapons in 1992-93, and four guns in both 1993-94 and 1994-95. “These data show that metal detectors work—they detect illegal weapons and aid their confiscation” (Johnson, 2000). More recently, the National School Safety Center reported that there was a 40 percent decrease of school-associated violent deaths in the 1998-99 school year from the previous school year (Jamison, 2002). And that was just one year’s progress.

Obviously, metal detectors have their limitations. No violence-prevention program is foolproof by itself: “No one knows how to foil a determined young killer. Nor does anyone confidently proclaim how to identify such a potential killer and then intervene to reform his character and cure his alienation” (Johnson, 2000). However, when used in conjunction with other methods, metal detectors do drastically reduce the number of weapons in schools and prevent the recurrence of violence. The number of crimes committed on school grounds decreases continually. “Violent victimization rates for students varied from a high of 59 violent victimizations per 1,000 students in 1993 to a low of 26 per 1,000 students in 2000” (U.S. Dept. of Justice, 2002). Nobody claims that metal detectors are the only solution to solving the problem of crime in schools--“violence in schools is never 100 percent preventable but there are many tools including metal detectors that can cut down the chances” (Clark, 1999).

Legalities: Do Metal Detectors Violate the Privacy Rights of Students?

“The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in part that ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause’” (qtd. in Ferraraccio, 1999). Are students awarded this right too, or do they have more minimal expectation of privacy in schools, thus reducing their right to privacy, like patrons of an airport or courthouse, where surveillance of weapons through metal detectors is standard for everyone?

Would it be hypocritical to deny students a right to privacy? Some argue that metal detectors work contrarily to a school’s effort to teach humanistic progress and that they redefine a student’s body space due to the power of the state. Isn’t it the school’s mission, in fact, to prepare students for “social adjustment”? (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Michael Ferraraccio (1999) agrees: “it would be ironic to, on the one hand, educate students in the virtues of citizenship, while on the other hand disregarding their constitutional rights.” Unfortunately, the question of hypocrisy is not easily answered, though. One must consider several issues, such as invasiveness of personal privacy, public safety, and court-declared legalities of metal detectors in schools.

Issue 1: Invasiveness of Metal Detectors

Although John Courtsunis (2001) implies that the metal detectors are no less intrusive than a strip search, there is no evidence of long-lasting ill effects on students who have been searched using minimal search tactics. A California court, upon reviewing the search policy of a high school using metal detectors, found the school’s random searches to be “minimally intrusive and reasonable under the circumstances” (Johnson, 2000).

One way to minimize the invasion of personal space is to buy a metal detector that “permits immediate searches to be made without touching the person” (“Garrett,” n.d.). In addition, metal detectors are becoming more accurate in detecting weapons without false alarms, leading to fewer unnecessary pat downs (Tamiami, 2002). In fact, the Garrett Hand Held Super Scanner boasts that it is “virtually eliminating the need for pat downs during weapons screenings, saving patrons from embarrassment” (“Garrett, n.d.). Also, many metal detectors come with earphones or vibrating alarms “for less conspicuous detecting” (“Garret,” n.d.).

Issue 2: Public Safety vs. Personal Privacy

Perry Zirkel (2000) expresses his concern that the lower courts are moving toward a “suspicion-less” standard for student searches, which require “at best, a particularized finding of pronounced school violence,…and at worst, only a public perception…of a generalized threat to school safety.” School safety is definitely a concern, but how does one determine the level of necessity for the use of surveillance to maintain or to regain a safe learning environment? “The problem… is how to balance the state’s interest in maintaining a safe learning environment with the student’s interest in privacy” (Ferraraccio, 1999).

Obviously, not all schools need to use metal detectors every day. In schools with records of less violence, metal detectors should be used only upon reasonable suspicion…either of an individual person or of a specific incidence of threat to the school. For instance, if a school official has received a tip that a specific individual in the school has a weapon, then the school official should follow the policy procedures to search that one individual. If, however, a school official has received a tip that some undetermined person in the school has a weapon, then all persons within the school should be searched under policy procedures. In one such case, a bus driver noticed fresh slashes in a seat on the school bus, giving the school officials reason to suspect that somebody had a knife or other cutting instrument on school grounds. Because of the specific incident of threat, the metal detectors were used on all of the junior high and high school students, according to the school search policy (Ferraraccio, 1999).

Other schools with a higher frequency of violent crimes in their district may choose to use metal detectors every day on every person who enters the school grounds as a precautionary measure—to protect the students and staff from potential harm. Although students here have a lower expectation of privacy, they have a higher confidence of security within the schools. Courts have overwhelmingly supported the right of the schools to conduct routine searches because “the need to protect students from weapons overrides the individual student’s right to privacy, and searches under such justifications do not constitutionally require that there be individualized suspicion” (Ferraraccio, 1999).

Although Ferraraccio (1999) concedes that metal detector searches are constitutional when suspicion arises, he cautions us that “the removal of individualized suspicion tends to further lower one’s expectation of privacy, so that as metal detector searches become more and more commonplace, the next generation of students will become even less sensitive to what should constitute a legitimate expectation of privacy, perhaps setting the precedent for even more intrusive searches, and less reasonable searches, than exist now.” However, Robert Johnson (2000) says that Ferraraccio “badly underestimates the importance of countervailing safety considerations.” The intention of the courts, after all, is not to remove the privacy of students but rather to ensure the safety of all.

The bottom line is that school officials understand their district’s personal needs better than those who have become biased in their opinions due to exposure of specific cultures and attitudes. The frequency of the use of metal detectors in schools is dependent upon the level of violence that those schools are exposed to. School administrators must have a “compelling interest to intrude upon the students’ reasonable expectation of privacy,” even if that compelling interest is the general safety of students and orderly environment “free of the possession and use of weapons” (“Use of Metal Detectors in the Schools,” n.d.). Whether the search is to be carried out on all students or on just individual students, suspicion of a weapon on campus must be an issue.

Issue 3: Legality of Metal Detectors in Schools

Courts have overwhelmingly determined that using metal detectors in schools is legal. In 1994, the government tried to enforce a policy nationwide that required schools to implement a safety program in their schools, offering metal detectors as one effective method (“U.S. Schools…,” 1997). Although the Supreme Court eventually overturned the requirements, the lower courts still support safety measures such as metal detectors in schools. In fact, they even support cases in which individualized suspicion is absent: “the courts have repeatedly approved the constitutionality of weapon-related suspicionless student searches conducted with metal detectors, and…these decisions are fully consistent with the school-related decisions of the United States Supreme Court” (Johnson, 2000). Even if they did not necessarily defend “suspicionless” searches, there is little that they can do to deny that right to the schools: “to say that a search may be ‘reasonable’ absent a warrant or probable cause is not to say much, for the Court has never defined or offered much in the way of a guideline as to what is meant by reasonable” (Ferraraccio, 1999). Regardless of the ethics of the issue, which could be discussed endlessly, the reality is that the courts support the schools’ decision to use metal detectors.

Recommendations: How Searches Should Be Conducted

Once school officials determine that the school district does in fact need metal detectors, they need to decide how they want to implement the surveillance program in the school. Will searches be performed on a daily basis? Will the searches be random? Will the searches be performed solely upon suspicion of an individual or isolated threat of violence? This decision needs to be considered very thoroughly. Although law is on the side of the school, ethics are on the side of the students, especially if there is no routine threat of violence in the school district. The implementation of such a program should be as minimally intrusive as possible to protect the students’ right to personal privacy.

“One way of setting norms of behavior is to adopt a written policy clearly prohibiting certain activities, like bringing weapons or harassing other students” (Volokh & Snell, 1998). The policy should also address methods of searches for such weapons and consequences should weapons be discovered in a person’s possession.

First, everyone in the school should be told in advance that searches will take place upon suspicion or upon administrative decision, and everyone should be informed of the purpose of the search, most likely that it is to prevent weapons from being brought into the school. According to Shelby County School’s 2002-2003 Student-Parent Handbook (2002), one good way to inform school visitors as well as students and staff about the metal detector surveillance program is to post signs “notifying students and visitors that they are subject to unannounced electronic screening for weapons.” Not only is the information in the handbook for parents and students to see, but it is also available to all who enter the school.

Once a search is initiated, the officers conducting the search should maintain professionalism, following a uniform procedure, thus “safeguard[ing] the students from the discretion of those conducting the search” (Ferraraccio, 1999).

Whenever a person is screened due to individualized suspicion, that person should be brought into a private place, such as “the principal’s or associate principal’s office” (“Use of Metal Detectors in Schools,” n.d.) to create the least intrusive environment for the suspect. In addition, an adult besides the official implementing the search should be present (“Use of Metal Detectors in Schools,” n.d.) to ensure and verify that no inappropriate action takes place during the search. Anything that occurs which is contradictory to the specific policy procedures should be reported to the superintendent for further investigation.

During the procedure, the suspect will first be asked to remove all metal objects in his/her possession before the metal detector is used in order to reduce the chance of a false alarm with the metal detector. After all volunteered metal objects have been exposed by the suspect, the official will scan the student’s body and possessions with the metal detector (either a hand-held or mounted model). Mounted models, although more expensive than hand-held models, are more effective and less intrusive, according to many (for example, Volokh & Snell, 1998, and Shelby County Schools, 2002). Suspects merely pass through them without any fear of being inappropriately touched by an official. Still, hand-held models can be highly effective and minimally intrusive as long as the official is careful to avoid body contact. If the metal detector is activated, the suspect should be asked once again to remove all remaining metal objects from his/her possession. The suspect is given the benefit of the doubt that the remaining metal was left on his/her possession unintentionally the first time s/he was asked to remove all metal objects; s/he is thereby given another opportunity to avoid the following, more intrusive steps of the procedure. The intention is not to harass a suspect, but to prevent unnecessary further intrusion. After all, a “metal detector triggered by car keys could give officials carte blanch authority to conduct a further and more intrusive search than can be justified by the purpose of the initial search” (Ferraraccio, 1999). After the suspect’s second attempt at removing all metal from his/her possession, the official scans the suspect’s body and possessions a second time. If the alarm is activated again, the suspect is subject to a “pat down,” whereupon a school official of the same gender (as supported by many articles, including Ferraraccio’s “Metal Detectors in the Public Schools: Fourth Amendment Concerns,” 1999, and “Use of Metal Detectors in the Schools,” n.d.) will quickly pat down the suspect’s fully-clothed body. The pat down is the final step of a search and should be used only if necessary as the guidelines indicate. At any point during the search, if the object assumed to have set off the alarm is found, the search should end without proceeding through the remaining steps of the screening process.

When screening large groups, officials should follow similar procedures with only a few exceptions. For instance, because of the number of people being searched, the expectation for privacy could decrease, depending on the anticipated potential for violence: "the expectation of privacy that is reasonable should depend on the degree of harm" that the school is trying to "prevent or deter" (Song, 2003). Most likely, this type of surveillance would take place at the entrance to a school or in the school’s gymnasium rather than in a more private location like the principal’s office. All students would be searched, or if lines become too long, a random formula may be used to determine the selection of students to be screened. It should be noted, though, that there is a higher risk of discrimination when random selection is performed. There should in no way be any discriminating factors in the formula for choosing students to be screened, “for example gender, religion, race, etc.” (Shelby County School District, 2002). Rather, a more blanket formula should be used, such as every fourth person will be searched without exception, unless individualized suspicion overrides the rule. If a pat down becomes necessary, the suspect should be moved to a private location to continue the search. This stipulation is essential to promote privacy for the student.

Large-group screenings are not always effective or efficient, so they should be used sparingly and only if absolutely necessary as deemed by school officials who have based their decision on excessive violent crime rates within the school district. One problem with large screenings is that they often take hours to complete, so “bottlenecks are common,” and oftentimes, students arrive to their first hour classes late if at all (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Schools try to solve that problem by using random selection of students on which to perform the search, but this is somewhat ineffective too because only a percentage of the students passing through the doors are being screened. When random searches are performed, as many as 8 out of 9 students walk through the door without being screened for weapons (Volokh & Snell, 1998). Another option is to have students arrive at the school at “staggering” times to “allow sufficient time for processing” (Schneider, 2001).

Still, for schools that have a reputation of routine violence, the statistics are convincing. Even with instances of large-group random screenings, the presence of metal detectors has proven to drastically reduce the number of violent crimes in the schools, and more and more schools are installing them to protect their students and staff. In Chicago, every public middle and high school has installed mounted metal detectors, and every public elementary school has at least two hand-held metal detectors (Hoffman, 2000). Many districts, however, do not have the immediate need for metal detectors in their schools. Very few elementary schools have any history of violence with weapons, so, appropriately, “fewer than one-half of 1 percent of elementary schools” had metal detectors at last count in 1996-97 (Hoffman, 2000). In 1998, only 15 percent of schools overall used metal detectors in any capacity—39 percent of urban schools used metal detectors; 10 percent of suburban schools used them; and only 6 percent of rural schools used them (National School Board Association qtd. in Volokh & Snell, 1998). “Perceptions of school violence as a nationwide problem do not justify the use of metal detectors in local districts which have never had, and may never have, a problem with violence” (Ferraraccio, 1999). Once again, school officials must carefully assess their district’s need for surveillance and implement it appropriately.

Conclusion: How Can We Ultimately Conquer Violence in Our Schools?

“Prevention is a key factor in avoiding tragedies” (“U.S. Schools…,” 1997). Although “schools continue to be one of the most secure places for our children,” violence in schools is an issue that we must deal with swiftly through a combination of “‘hard’ responses such as metal detectors…[and] ‘soft’ responses that include more counseling, conflict resolution programs and better communications between school and home” (“School Safety,” 2003).

Some argue that “hard” responses, like metal detectors, are unnecessary. John Courtsunis’ (2001) solution is to “make everyone accountable in a more humanistic way and…work hard together for all involved, including the community at large.” Although this theory of an ethical utopia is appealing, it is not realistic. Prevention, or “early intervention,” programs definitely have their place in schools, but documentation on their independent success is very limited, whereas their use in conjunction with surveillance equipment is documented as highly successful. Don Weatherspoon, state assistant superintendent at Michigan, explains that “security is a larger issue than simple safety. That means having dispute resolution programs in schools as well as security cameras, school behavior rules as well as locker searches” (qtd. in Hoffman, 2000).

Some believe that “metal detectors are for beachcombers” (Courtsunis, 2001), while others believe that it is “better to be safe than sorry” (Clark, 1999). Ultimately, it comes down to the school district though. “‘There is no one program, no silver bullet, so that you can get one program up and say, Here it is if you put this program in your school, you are going to resolve violence’….The ideal violence-prevention policy will likely be different for each school” (William Modzeleski, U.S. Department of Education, qtd. in Volokh & Snell, 1998).

References

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Project Creator Contact Information:
Kathy Davis, John Kelsey, Dia Langellier, Misty Mapes, and Jeff Rosendahl
Course - EPS 313
CTER program at UIUC
Course Instructor - Nicholas Burbules