Beacon Villager - January 9, 2009

Maynard - Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone was at Maynard High School Wednesday to participate in the school’s monthly Community Based Justice (CBJ) meeting.
 
Established in the early 1990s by then-District Attorney Thomas Reilly, CBJ is a program that brings together school personnel, public safety officials and social service providers in order to identify who may be at risk for violent activity and help prevent such tendencies from developing.

 
“The concept was real simple. It was just to bring people together to talk about how to reach kids and prevent violence from happening,” said Leone.

Leone directed the program while an assistant district attorney under Reilly and helped it flourish into a national model for violence prevention.

According to Leone, the key to the program’s success is effective communication between the justice and school systems.

“It acts as a conduit between the school and the court,” he said.

Leone said as a result of the program, a state statute now mandates courts notify schools if any of their students are disciplined through the judicial system — a common-sense act that alerts schools across the district to potential problems and allows them to reach out to students who are headed down the wrong path, Leone said.
 
“You’re not treating these kids like criminals. Your treating them more from a remedial standpoint,” said Leone. “I’d rather partner up with Health and Human Services on the front end so we can reduce the work we do on the back end.”

The Community Based Justice meetings are attended by three principal entities — school administrators, police and assistant district attorneys — as well as other members who may or may not attend every meeting, including probation officers, child and family welfare workers and Department of Youth Services workers.

“The largest piece of this is communication between the core group of people who come together to strategize,” said Leone.

Leone said one thing his office is trying to communicate to schools and parents is the fact that more violence occurs in middle schools than high schools.

According to a facts sheet disseminated by his office, a recent Boston Globe article found that in 2005-2006, 53 percent of violence or threats of violence in Bay State schools occurred in middle schools, as opposed to 47 percent occurring in high schools.

“It’s not even a trend — it’s the fact of the matter,” said Leone.

According to Leone, the severity of violence has increased precipitously over the past few decades.

“It used to just be a fight after school,” he said. “Today, more kids are apt and willing to carry and use a weapon to solve conflict than ever before.”

Leone said he believes the more impersonal forms of communication that have become reality for younger Americans may contribute to their increased propensity for violence.

“If you are [texting] and you don’t have to say something to a kid’s face, then kids unfortunately are more inclined to be mean,” he said.

Maynard High School Principal Laura Chesson said maturity levels may also explain the disparity between middle school and high school violence.

“I think middle school students are not yet mature enough to realize the consequences of their actions,” she said.

High school students seeking college acceptance or a job can see the consequences of their actions more clearly, she said.

Both Chesson and Leone agreed MHS is at a relatively low risk of being victimized by violent crime.

“Our school is very, very safe,” said Chesson. “We don’t have nearly the amount of issues I’ve seen at other schools in terms of fighting in school.”

“The real focus in a town like Maynard is attendance and decision-making,” said Leone.

Leone said that poor attendance to class is indicative of a larger problem, and could cultivate an attitude that might predispose one towards violent acts.

Leone stressed the role that parents play in ensuring their children get to class.

“You’ve got to get your kids to school. We need to get parents to take that seriously,” he said. “The schools and police can’t be surrogate parents all the time.”

Leone said another important element to reducing childhood violence is encouraging children to participate in any after-school activity that keeps them busy from the hours of 3 to 6 p.m., the window wherein national statistics indicate most violent crimes among youths occur.

Leone said other risks factors, such as drug and alcohol abuse issues, are not inordinately high in Maynard, but warned that in the end, no community is truly safe from the threat of school violence.

“Violent crime can occur anywhere,” he said. “So the continuum of communication between kids, parents, schools and public safety officials is important.

“It’s about dialogue,” he said. “It’s talking about what’s wrong so you can ameliorate it and make it better.”