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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>Honestly, I'm not sure that police involvement for this stuff is a bad thing. Schools are no longer equipped to handle violence between students, and it's questionable whether they ever were.

I don't know, they are perfecty fine to "handle violence between students" in Western Europe, and without metal detectors and police on site.

Perhaps it's time for the society to recheck it's course, instead of throwing jail time at the problem?

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I don't agree. School in Western Europe can be a horrifying experience where the only solution is that the person being beaten up transfers to another school. Nothing is done about the people beating.

Emphasis on can. Of course it can, there is always outliers and there is nothing that can be done about that. However I would guess that in the majority of cases people beating do get handled. I am just guessing. Are you just guessing too or do you have some hard evidence or statistics to back your claim?

My personal experience and that of other members of my family is in line with Kiro's claim. Not very strong evidence, but it's what I've got.

Where I'm from people doing the beatings would get warnings, detention, special class and consultation, or as a last resort youth detention center ("prison" for kids with focus on rehabilitation) in that order. Sure, you could also move schools but this seems more to have been a decision taken by parents and not the school system itself.

I don't know. I went to school there, and there was absolutely zero (or 0.01% cases) of beating I'm aware of. In a whole region of 130.000 people.

Perhaps that's the case in some down and out regions in England or France, with rampant poverty and ex-industrial towns/suburbs (think Detroit).

But not in the majority of Western Europe. Some guys getting into a fight, sure. But beatings are not an occurance in schools, the same way guns aren't.

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