Slashdot Meets The Pinkerton Corp.

The chairman of the Pinkerton Corp. has agreed to meet with me Wednesday about the more than 1,000 objections posted last week on Slashdot to the company's WAVE America so-called school-safety program. The program, kicking off in North Carolina, offers schoolkids cash, caps and other incentives to turn in "depressed and dangerous" classmates to an anonymous toll-free number. Pinkerton brass say they have read each of the Slashdot comments and want to talk. (Read more about the meeting, and post any questions you have for Pinkerton here.)

The Chairman and lead Web developer of the Pinkerton Corporation have agreed to my request to fly to Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday and talk with company officials face-to-face abaout the objections many Slashdot readers have to the company's new "WAVE America" program.

WAVE America is a private, for-profit school-safety program gearing up in North Carolina -- with the enthusiastic support of the governor -- and going nationwide. It offers incentives (caps, T-shirts, cash) to students who call a toll-free number and anonymously turn in classmates they believe to be depressed or dangerous.

A company executive tells me that Pinkerton brass have already read all of the more than 1,000 posts about the program posted on Slashdot last week, and are considering some changes in WAVE America, including the cash and goodies. The company says it is also already revamping its vague criteria for identifying disturbed or dangerous kids, using specific symptoms recommended by psychiatric organizations.

I told the company official who called me that frankly, I hoped to convince Pinkerton to scrap this anonymous call-in program entirely. This kind of Draconian response to Columbine is unjustified, given that violence among children has been declining for years and that the horrific massacres are as random as they are rare. This kind of anonymous reporting encourages schookids to make judgments that therapists and counselors ought to be making, and could easily target the weird, geeky, unhappy and non-normal as well as the dangerous. It suggests the worst kind of Geek Profiling, in the process wantonly violating constitutional protections against unwarranted intrusions, search and seizure.

But I was surprised by the company's willingness to meet with me. I've been writing about variations on this issue for years. Large corporations are rarely -- in fact, never -- this responsive. Pinkerton executives said they were reading through all of the Slashdot posts, finding some of them compelling and convincing.

If Pinkerton eventually alters this program, it would mark a significant step in the use of the Net to provide individuals -- especially the young, who are historically voiceless in media as well as corporations -- with direct access to powerful entities that often aren't paying attention to anything but stock prices.

My expectations aren't high, but I said I valued a conversation over a confrontation and would keep an open mind if Pinkerton would. I also asked if I could post a message asking Slashdot readers whether they had specific questions about WAVE America -- one of a number of "school-safety" programs launched in the wake of the Columbine killings last year. So if you have any questions or opinions you'd like me to relay to the Pinkerton people I'll be meeting with, please post them here. They can read them directly on the site, or I can relay them. I'll report back on the meeting in a few days.

Comments

I hope...

[zztzed]

I hope this has a favorable outcome... but for the love of , Jon, PLEASE DON'T USE THE TERM "GEEK PROFILING" WHEN YOU'RE TALKING TO THEM.

--

My List of W.A.V.E. Concerns

[ForteBravo]

Treat children as children and you will get childish behavior. Treat them as adults and most of the time, you will be pleasantly rewarded. Give them the same rights, responsibilities, and protections, and we can guarantee schoolyard violence will be virtually wiped out.

However, the Pinkerton decision-makers have to realize that children live very different lives from the rest of us. In real life, legal protection is subordinate to common practice. Thus, a middle school student who is verbally or physically abused by peers is, by the laws of the schoolyard that prevail, not entitled to any protection from teachers, police, or the court system.

Now, this snippet of argument might lead one to think that I support the idea of adding the authority of a third (private, disinterested) party into the Schoolyard Corpus of Law.

But I do not. At least, I do not support Pinkerton's current version of the law. I think Pinkerton has been seduced by sunny blond girls and boys* linking hands, praying, weeping, singing songs about the violence in schools, vowing to fight intolerance and embrace all students. But the reality is this:

While the popular boys and girls may feel a grain of love and tolerance for their fellow students in the face of monstrous crimes, they fall, soon enough, into their old patterns, which range from simple exclusion by these sunny blond people to the commission of absolute atrocities against the rest of the schoolyard.

Haven't you wondered why you only ever saw cheerleaders linking hands with other cheerleaders in these media pictures? It's because the goths, geeks, and nerds know that the above italicised paragraph is a truism that cannot be affected by any number of Anti-Violence Singalongs. Diversity in the workplace has no analog in schools.

So, what is the solution? W.A.V.E. America is not the solution, in its current form. Here is a list of my concerns about this program.

1. In one breath, the Pinkerton site speaks of "responsibility", and in the next, allows children to duck responsibility by calling anonymous tips in on their fellow students.
   • Pro: If there were a danger to the student of being injured somehow if their name was released in conjunction with an investigation into a fellow student, then anonymity protects them.
   • Con: The right to know and face one's accuser is critical! The accuser's right to safety does not outweigh the rights of the accused. This has been proven over and over in our system of justice. If the student who calls the W.A.V.E. line believes they are in danger, then they are entitled to protection, not anonymity. Pinkerton probably has a division that could protect them (you know, razor for free, charge for the blades and all that). Students need to call the police, not W.A.V.E., if they are in so much danger that they cannot give their name.
2. What happens as the result of a call? A report is sent to school administrators. The school then has the responsibility to act on all tips -- anonymous or otherwise.
   • Pro: At least we don't have a corporation deciding which kids are troublemakers and which kids are being unfairly reported. Theoretically, the school administrators should be informed enough to gauge the difference and act fairly.
   • Con: Yeah right. W.A.V.E. strengthens the status quo by putting the power right back in the hands of the people that enforce a pecking order. What will the school do if a goth calls in and reports that the quarterback has been leaving dead animals in her locker again? Same as always - nothing at all, because school administrators virtually never act against the interests of the powerful or the popular**. When the opposite occurs, and the quarterback's girlfriend calls in to say the goth is threatening to blow away the football team, all hell will break loose. Maybe Pinkerton should be given a mandate to protect the innocent, even the freaky. (Yes I know -- it would be against every mandate in this country to hand over power/justice to a company whose responsibility is to make money. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The Pinkerton officials just need to be aware that a corporation absolutely cannot maximize profits and justice at the same time.)
3. Resolve, Respect, and Responsibility***. You mean, as defined by Pinkerton. Or as defined by your teachers. Or as defined by your local police. You probably don't mean, as defined by yourself, after much critical thinking and reading. For example:
   • Responsibility in the context of W.A.V.E. probably includes upholding the law of the land without ever questioning its fitness or justice.
   • Resolve means that when someone makes fun of your breasts, you tell an adult, preferably someone in charge like an administrator. When the administrator does nothing, you call W.A.V.E., who sends a report to the administrator. What do you do after that? *shrug* Beats me. Besides, W.A.V.E. might not even take your call if all you have to report is a silly little bit of sexual harassment.
   • Respect means knowing where you stand in the school hierarchy, and not stepping out of line in your daily interactions with other students. It probably doesn't mean demanding that 17 year old felons be put in jail regardless of their athletic scholarship.

There is just so much more I could address. If there'd been more notice, I would have asked Pinkerton if I could fly out as well. For instance, the mission statement that states that they are dedicated to "tomorrow's workforce" implies exclusion on their part -- poets and beatniks be damned, we're just protecting the future cubicle occupiers because as a company it would be irresponsible of us to protect anything beyond our own interests.

Anyway...to anyone that has read this far...thanks for listening to my admittedly long opinion on this matter!!

-- Amanda

*I bear no responsibility for the Aryan resemblance to Hitler youth. Associating violent jock gangs with Hitler youth might be valid, but it's still cheap and self-serving.
** Dissecting Columbine's Cult of the Athlete
***From the Pinkerton site

----------

Blown away...

[CodeShark]

I'm sitting here at my workstation with my jaw somewhere just above my shoelaces, hoping that maybe all of the comments posted by members of the /. community might have actually made a difference before a corporation does something that ends up being anti-freedom instead of after. My thought is that Pinkerton deserves at least one kudo for listening, and a whole lot more if they follow through with effective changes and/or dismantling parts of the program altogether.

That said, here's my list of thoughts, then a list of questions.

Thoughts:

1. Offering a T-Shirt to a young person isn't necessarily bad --but not as an incentive to "turn someone in". If I were a student, I'd much rather get a T-Shirt for participating in a program in which I learned how to reach out to a a depressed or disaffected person, rather than rat-finking on somebody I didn't even really understand.
2. An anonymous toll free number is good. Now then, make it a hotline where a depressed student can call and get anonymous help, and it might actually be a force for good, instead of for reporting differences.

Questions:

1. The company says it is also already revamping its vague criteria for identifying disturbed or dangerous kids, using specific symptoms recommended by psychiatric organizations.

   Great, now we've got untrained, immature students trying to perform complex psychological evaluations on each other. How does Pinkerton propose to overcome this immaturity and lack of training in students?
   

2. Wouldn't a more effective use of web resources be to create sites that offer training in communication techniques, web places where a student can anonymously ask for help?
3. It suggests the worst kind of Geek Profiling, in the process wantonly violating constitutional protections against unwarranted intrusions, search and seizure.

   How does Pinkerton propose to implement WAVE without violating these constitutional rights?

4. Under what criteria would an individual be added to a company database, and how long would they remain in the records?
5. Would records be made available to law enforcement agencies without a search warrant?
6. Finally, what guarantees are there in place that any information in these databases can never be exposed to outside parties?

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for safe schools, etc. But students reporting on each other is the wrong use of resources. I'm all for a WAVE program that teaches inclusion, not reporting of exclusions.

The "warning signs"...

[Rantage]

Are listed here. I was amused to note the duplication of "Has unlawful possession and use of firearms.". I guess that's thrown in there twice for the kids with poor reading comprehension. :)

More disturbing was "Conveys violence in writings and/or drawings." Lot of room there. I guess kids shouldn't draw battles or scenes from their favorite movies; God knows what will be reported about them.

While still capable of being misinterpreted, I think the Imminent Warning Signs they list are a bit more on-target.

Totally worthless, IMHO, is the Why Call The WAVE Line page and it's purpose. It urges newly-hatched WAVE drones to call the line if they wish to anonymously report drug/alcohol abuse, vandalism and suicide threats -- valid cases I suppose -- along with aggressive behavior, harassment, intolerant attitudes and "Anything Else Harmful to You or Your School".

Gee, could I call the WAVE line to report that WAVE is harmful to me and my school?

Any of you high-school gratuates out there remember not experiencing some kind of agressive behavior, harassment or intolerant atttudes during those years?

I'm so damn glad my school days are long past; high school was stressful enough without worrying about the Stasi looking over my shoulder every minute.
Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.

My biggest fear about WAVE: a tool for bullying

[davew]

Jon,

I'd really appreciate if you could ask the WAVE people how they plan to deal with its potential as a tool for bullying.

WAVE strikes me as an easy, anonymous and rewarding ($$$, t-shirts) way to cause instant grief to a fellow pupil. Kids who are willing to break a kid's bicycle lights, ostracise her in the yard, or embarrass them in the classroom on a permanent basis, will have no qualms about abusing this company's tool to get anyone quiet or different into trouble.

Now what I suspect is that, further to the above, the company's mechanisms will not be sufficient to catch such abuse.

Remember Independence Day? Remember the drunkard pilot who dusted the wrong field? Remember the TV interview with his "friends" who said, "Nice guy. Harmless guy. But the aliens abused him. Sexually."

Picture this now: an anonymous tip is received, "this guy's trouble". The class is identified. Now I don't know what WAVE's procedures are, but I reckon they're not going to just use a single anonymous tip-off before hauling in the kid, right? Surely they'll interview other kids first to make sure it's not just a grudge thing?

In a class of thirty, you will get twenty-four people who say "Dunno. He's quiet all the time. Noone seems to like him." and five who, for the laugh, will make up half-truths for the interviewer to make the kid seem as disturbed as possible.

Interviewer files his report, which is processed and added to the statistics database that will be presented to customers at the end of the year saying "we dealt with 100,000 potentially distressed students this year".

It's easy to see the individual elements of WAVE as pretty harmless in themselves. But taken together:

• Profit-making institution
• Anonymous reporting
• Rewards of cash and clothing
• Profit-making institution (this is what bothers me most, can you guess?)

...they'd seem to be the ingredients for a positive-feedback abuse loop. How can the WAVE people ensure that that never happens, please?

Dave

--

I have a report

[VAXGeek]

I'd like to turn in some of the kids from my school's computer club. They are always talking about "eunuchs". They walk around saying such things as 'awk' and 'grep'. They show signs of alcoholism by saying such things as "free as in beer", and appear to worship some kind of daemon. If this isn't malicious, anti-social behavior, I don't know what is.
------------
a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless

Question from a european point of view

[Nicolas MONNET]

I second Signail11's question. I have another question: do you realize that in Europe a plan such as yours would raise much concern, so much as to throw hundreds of thousands of protesters in the street? Do you realize that anonymously denouncing people has been only used by the harshest dictatorships in this century? Do KGB, Stasi, Gestapo and Sekuritat ring a bell to you? Ever heard of the concept of yellow star?

As for the marketing angle to your website (and as I understand it, whole program). Do you know that Europeans would never let their kids be exposed to the kind of advertising that's widely used in american schools? Maybe here again that's a reminiscence of dictatorships: I believe the nazis pioneered the use of propaganda towards children.

Having drawn those parallels, do you share my (our) concerns? If you do, and I hope you do, how come you did'nt think of it before?

KISS

[Signal 11]

I'll keep it short and sweet - my middle and high school years were a testament to how bad things can go wrong in public education.

The root cause of this is remarkably simple: standardized education hits the middle of the bell-curve and ignores, or is actively hostile to, any more than a standard deviation or so out. That is to say public education satisfies it's demands for about 69-78% of the population. For the rest, however, it's living hell.

Many kids who go through this become depressed, suicidal, despondent, their grades falter, peer relationships become unstable or non-existant.. all the symptoms of a person under high stress. What you are proposing to do will not help these children. All the program will do is associate yet another label to a problem nobody wants to address.

This background was necessary to give you a framework in which to see where I'm coming from with my question. My question is, why are you punishing these kids for being different?

Re:The Onion's take on Geek Profiling

[Sethb]

I think that the Pinkerton program is going about this all wrong, they're not targeting the truly dangerous group of people in America's high schools. This isn't an anti-jock rant or anything, but I feel that the Columbine killers most likely reacted to the abuse put upon them on a constant basis by the other students in their high school. Just think about it for a moment, most kids don't just decide to up and waste their classmates for no good reason, and I think it's time that educators, parents, and law enforcement stopped treating high school conflicts like playground fights.

I was by no means a jock in high school, but I didn't fit any of these geek stereotypes either. I participated in the Track & Golf teams, as well as Speech, Drama, and Yearbook. I never played a single game of D&D, and we only had Wolf3D, no Doom yet.

When I look back at some of the bastards who made my day hell, I realize that it is terrifyingly easy to understand how anyone could be driven to depression, suicide, or revenge by the purposefully cruel actions of their classmates. I got slammed against lockers, given "titty twisters" in the locker rooms, kicked, hit, and generally verbally abused as well.

I'm not trying to tell my story here, I'm sure most of you experienced things that very similar, and I'm sure many of the "jocks" did as well, especially from upperclassmen in the same sports.

So what do we do about this problem? Blaming the victims will get us nowhere. If you want to create a resource for kids who need help, howabout one where they can go to report the abusive actions of their peers, where school administrators won't tell them to "tough it out" or to "deal with it". I never ONCE felt that any teacher or administrator in my high school would give two craps that Andy Jahnke tried to stuff me in a locker. (He's dead now, head-on car accident, I laughed when I heard that, seriously, maybe there is something to karma.)

My suggestion, Pinkerton, is howabout not rewarding students for turning people in, but providing a resource for students and administrators about what steps to take to stop these abuses. Students should have someone, several someones in fact, at every school who will be their advocates in these cases. There should be a local police liason with the high school, and these cases should result in charges being filed against the abusers.

Too often, I feel that these things are viewed as harmless, when the victims are truly physically and emotionally harmed.

If you leave bruises on a person, it's assault. Period. There should be no suspensions from sports, you're off the team permanently. You do it again, or so-help-me-god retaliate against the person for reporting you, and you're expelled, as well as violating your probation.

There need to be real consequences for those who abuse their fellow students. Not 15 laps, not detention. If I walked into my co-workers office and slugged him in the stomach, would my boss make me work late? No, I'd be charged and sentenced by the legal system, and fired from my job.

Why is this not similar if I'm a senior in high school? Why do those being abused not report the cases of abuse to the police and/or school administrators? Why do we as a society view it as less-severe if the participants in these forms of violence are still in high school?
---

I Find it Ironic

[chromatic]

I find it ironic that there are so many young people who are confused and hurting, who really need just one or two good adult role models to sit down with them and listen to them for a while...

... and those adults will hear some painful and confused feelings of isolation and loneliness and despair...

... and brand these kids as possible menaces to society.

When I was a teenager, I didn't want people to listen to me because they might be afraid of what I might do. I wanted people to listen to me because they cared about me and could identify with the way I was feeling and the thoughts I was thinking.

Don't alienate young people even further in the guise of helping them. Please.

--

Want to Stop WAVE dead? Ask them this:

[orpheus]

If you want to stop WAVE dead in its tracks, ask them what responsibility they are willing to take for the various aspects of their program (use the words "legal liability")

They cannot rely on the "open conduit" principle used by ISPs because they specifically stated that the 'kids will be trained' in the danger signs to recognize. As Governor Hunt noted, "This program is more than just a tip line, it teaches students and parents to look for the early signs of violent behavior and to resolve conflicts constructively."

Training children does not automatically induce liability (if it did, few would dare teach anyone anything out of fear that the student might not learn well or might deliberately misuse the knowledge), but the possibility clearly exists

I hate the fact that we live in a litigious society, but note that my examples (below) are just issues of responsibility. Corporations are not people (except in the eyes of the law) so the legal system stands in lieu of many of the elements of societal conditioning and 'conscience' that individuals are expected to have

The WAVE training and hotline will be the equivalent of showing a few Driver's Ed videos in assembly, leaving a Pinkerton car in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition, and telling the kids "it's for you to use only in serious situations."

If anything goes wrong, there will be two or more "innocent" minors involved, a 'beleagered' school, and a Big Corporation. And perhaps third party victims as well. Whatever the details of the case, no lawyer could overlook the deep pockets of the corporation.

There are a hundred issues of access/liability in such an unreliable database: Will they relay all tips blindly? Will they accept responsibility for those they choose to relay? Those that they choose NOT to relay? Will they keep all tips confidential (hiding them from potential victims)? Or does the public have 'a right to know'? Will the info be available freely to law enforcement or only under specific subpoena? Will the 'subject' be told of the detailss of the tip made against him/her? Or will it ne an undefendable slur?

What are the specific criteria for reportable actions? Example: drugs, yes -- but casual use or dealing; and what type of drugs? Tobacco? Alcohol? Only 'illegal' drugs? Oops, sorry, both butts and beers are illegal in this group, and being drunk poses the same dangers as being high when it comes to both violence and lethally poor judgement (e.g. throwing rock off the water tower onto the school yard)

What about pornography? Allegations of danger signs or situations inside the family (physical or sexual abuse -- gee, I guess even the parents aren't safe, after all)? Depression? Sexual activity? Religious beliefs? Political beliefs? (Look out Satanists and neo-Nazis... but also, wiccans, politically active Arab refugees, etc. it doesn't take much to be labeled a potential terrorist or 'cult')

Oh yeah, I'm waiting for Crosstown High's entire football team to be hauled in for questioning the week before the state finals... on a series of tips from Riverdale High. A rumor of last week's kegger is one thing, but with an outside company making the report, the pricipal doesn't dare risk one of the kids getting in a drunk driving accident next month.)

Oh I'm sorry, is this a downer? Is this getting awfully complicated when all you wanted to do was stamp out DOOM players, kids who wear black, freshman whose AP Chemistry scores suggest "more than adequate knowledge to make a bomb" (it happened to me, and the shadow followed me through HS. Funny thing - a senior with the same knowledge would be applauded)

Lord help them if they decide 'on a case-by-case basis'. That's pretty much full liability.

In short. THEY design a system. THEY implement it. THEY are going to have a tough time if something goes wrong. And it WILL, perhaps not because of them, but nonetheless their nose will be inextricably stuck into a situation fraught with inherent perils... with a plan that's untested and has had relatively few man-months of thought. (something with this kind of impact needs tens or hundreds of thousands of man-months of debate -- e.g. a public referendum on the ballot)

__________

Bring me the head of the football team captain....

[Jurph]

...and I'll give you a T-Shirt.

Athlete-worship and America's anti-intellectualism (whichever caused the other) are both to blame for the "socially acceptable" violence that occurs as the alpha males haze the underlings. The problem is that even in chimp research, every once in a long long while, the underling surprises the alpha male and kills him. Doesn't just rub his nose in shit, doesn't just throw him out of a tree... kills him. And then the whole family of chimps, enamored with their alpha male, ostracize the chimp who did it.

WAVE might give the nerds a chance to rat out the jocks (but who would wear a shirt that says, "I'm a Narc, guys!" to school?), but no matter what 20/20 hindsight they have, and no matter what they told the interviewers, the jocks never saw Columbine coming. Let me say that again:

THEY NEVER SAW IT COMING.

Any jock who beats up geeks knows that he's not as smart as they are. Bullying stems from insecurity. A bully who picks on a pensive geek is asking to be taken by surprise, in a devious, well-thought-out plan, that allows no revenge.

SO: we need to save these Darwin candidates from themselves. Turn them in, take the cash, buy hardware, and stay smart. The more bullies we stop young, the less we have to kill.

In short, WAVE won't ever find the dangerous geeks, but if its creators are smart, WAVE can be used to stop all of the violence.

Oh boy...

[spankenstein]

Is this what people think is actually the solution? I am amazed by america everyday.

Can kids not go to their parents anymore? I came from a severly broken home, but I could almost always go to one of my parents with a problem. I have a 10 month old daughter. I hope that she can come to me when she is older.

Personally I don't see kids getting worse, on the contrary I see less violence than when I was in High School 3 years ago. My younger siste is a junior and has had progressivley less problems and talks about progressively fewer fights every year.

I think the major problem that we are facing is completely irresposible media. Sure, Columbine was news worthy, but it was NOT a commentary on America's youth. It's not a commentary on the Internet, it's not a commentary on Games.

I know many people that spend hours per day on the net, play quake, listen to heavy music and wear dark clothing that are as happy as humanly possible. They are just enjoying life. At work we played a Q3A deathmatch last night. I didn't go kill anyone, i didn't even harm animals as I ate my vegetarian dinner. So i listened to some punk rock and went to sleep.

This morning I woke up and was at my job at 7:30 a.m., about an hour and a half early. I didn't kill anyone. I have no real anger in my body right now and I've been on the net all morning.

In high school i would have been a prime target for this. I was a depressed, insomniac, geek/musician that had multi-colored hair in multiple spiky arrangements and a skateboard and a really bad attitude about life. I never went over the edge. But being persecuted like this could have easily pushed the wrong buttons.

OK...questions

[gonzocanuck]

1.Why is the website privacy policy so lax? Nabisco's Candystand has more rules than this! It would never fly with Truste (not that *that's* saying much)

2.Why not offer a help line for depressed kids rather than a snitch line? Canada has had the Kids' Help Phone for about 10 years now and it is wildly popular and successful, as well as ANONYMOUS

3.Rewarding kids is nothing new, but doesn't WAVE take corporate sponsorship to a new level? It's bad enough that there is so much advertising in schools, and I feel kids today are just being groomed to consume and consume since they day they're able to point "I want that".

4.One of my favourite authors once wrote about the indecency of being made to pee in a bottle "with the results potentially ruining your life forever" or something to that effect...is WAVE more interested in ruining lives or actually helping them?

Re:What if -- A compromise

[goliard]

FYI, I had an acquaintance who decided to get a mutual classmate in serious trouble; he enlisted my aid, and the aid of a number of other kids likely to be considered "reliable witnesses" by the teachers, and the complicity of a bigger kid for "backup". Then he got the majority of the class to help him provoke a fight with the target; the bigger kid stepped in a saved his butt from being kicked. When the principle was called in, all the witnesses were already lined up. We got the kid detention for a week.

Just so you know.
----------------------------------------------

Fury

[goliard]

Two things, Jon:

(1) Sure, read it to the CEO. But you do realize that Pinkerton is exploiting this political stunt? That if they don't sell this or some other "defensive" product (they aren't in a position to sell therapy or other remedy to personal problems, only defense of the school), they have no business interest at all?

(2) The thing which most pisses me off about this entire thing, having gone to read their web site, is that they're selling to the schools and parents the myth of students that they want to hear: that it's all the kids' fault. In particular, they have all this nonsense about getting students to take the threat of violence seriously. I assure you, the kids take the threat of violence seriously! That's why most kids bring knives and guns to school in the first place! That's why teasing is so threatening and traumatic -- it's not because your feelings have been hurt, but because you don't know how far or fast the situation will escalate.

The FACT is that it is the teachers and administrators who don't take the threat of violence seriously. They're the ones who turn a blind eye ("kids will be kids") right up to the moment one kid blows another's brains out.

That Pinkerton could so venally cater to the self-serving, responsibility-absolving fantasies of school administrators that it's really all the kids' fault for not taking violence seriously, or not "walking away from fights" is sick and evil.

But, theres's no business in selling schools a product which shows them their deficiencies, or seats responsibility in the school staff. Who will buy a product or service which tells them that they allow violence to be perpetrated against children? Much more emotionally safe to buy a product which puts the responsibility onto the victims themselves.
----------------------------------------------

Re:The Onion's take on Geek Profiling

[ronfar]

Actually, that isn't true, The Washington Post ran this story:

Dissecti ng Columbine's Cult of the Athlete

Which is a fairly good analysis of the fact that the administration at Columbine seemed to tolerate and encourage violence among the students. (Especially the ones who were involved in athletics.). It's basically a serious version of the Onion story.

Incidentally, I don't think that the Columbine murderers were geeks, really. I think that a good portion of the media/political establishment decided to label them as such because it serves their agenda. For instance, geeks are always complaining about things like the DMCA and they know more about computers than members of Congress. Not surprising that the government favors the image of geeks as dangerous social outcasts with scores to settle. They did the same thing with hippies after the Manson murders. It seems like the two murderers got some of the same lenient treatment from the school as some of the athletes, if the Washington Post story is to be believed.

For example, in the story referenced above in this post, it is noted that the two Columbine murderers had committed felony burglary before they went on their killing spree, which would seem to be more germain than the fact that they modded levels for Doom. Most people, however, only ever hear about Doom. Also, Columbine isn't the only one of these attacks, how come Jonesborough is never mentioned? Could it be that the details of the Jonesborough incident don't fit a useful profile? In fact, I pretty sure that a careful analysis of Jonesborough wouldn't yield it as a "geeks vs. jocks" situation at all.

Kids and Guns

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I don't know what the Pinkertons' current set of criteria are. But some of the other schemes that were bandied about after Columbine involved scoring systems that penalized the targeted individual for things like presence of guns in the house and experience with guns.

Approximately half of the households in the United States have one or more gun present. A large fraction of those households - probably the majority - are populated by members of one of the factions of the American Pluralist culture.

These people train their children in proper gun handling at an early age. They are generally gifted with a gun, as well, typically when the parents or guardians determine that they have demonstrated by their behavior that they are responsible to handle it, or at the first birthday thereafter. This may happen as early as age 12 (though the gun will be stored safely, and the child will lose access to it if he demonstrates irresponsibility later).

The criminal and violent activity of children who have been trained with guns by responsible adults has been studied, and compared with that of those who have not been so trained. It turns out that the overall delinquency rates of the two groups are about the same. But when you look at the TYPES of misbehavior, the difference is drastic.

While the kids not trained with guns are out selling drugs, mugging, and robbing liquor stores, the kids trained with guns are out after curfew, or smoking in the boy's room. Even when kids trained with guns become involved with local youth gangs or commit assaults (which they do much less frequently than those not so trained), there is a conspicuous difference: They don't use a gun in the assault.

And if you look at the perpetrators of the various highly-publicised school shootings, you'll see a significant fact that the press has missed: Virtually all of the perpetrators came from families that were strongly anti-gun. At least one was the child of a prominent activist in the anti-gun movement.

So I share with the rest of the posters the concern about labeling of intelligent tech-savvy kids who hang out with others of their kind, don't participate in sports, and are already the butt of the jocks' and authority figures' harrassment. And I share the concern about the use of such turn-in programs by the little psycopaths prevalent in schools to further harrass anyone who doesn't knuckle under to them or who reports THEIR misbehavior, to obtain gifts off the system, or to hassle people at random just for giggles. But I have an additional worry.

I'm concerned that the Pinkertons will become involved in the current culture war. I'm concerned that this tool will be used to stigmatize children who have the misfortune to be born into a household that is a member of one of a set of well-integrated, peaceful, social traditions that predates the American Revolution.

And I'm concerned that this will further the attempts at the eradication of those cultural groups.

Dear Pinkertons:

[technos]

I am a geek. A flaming geek. The kind of geek that inspired both fear from the mentally deficient and awe from the intelligent.

But even given the strictest 'psych-inspired' guidelines, I would have been locked away in a WAVE-sponsored rubber-room. I spent quite a few years studying 'profiling', and the underlying psychology as part of degrees in criminal justice and forensics. At the time, we were introduced to a study that had come out of the Ohio Department of Youth Services. According to their risk assessment criteria for juvenile offenders (which looks strangly enough like your WAVE criteria) I would have been locked away in a maximum security juvenile facility, drugged with antidepressants, and forced to undergo extensive counselling had I done anything as wrong as being ticketed for spitting on the sidewalk in Dayton.

And what had I done to deserve this dangerous classification? I was introverted, had an IQ of 160+, made vague verbal intimations of violence toward others ('get out of my face, jock, or I'll make sure you're the first one dead when the Revolution comes') and was more interested in frobbing ten-year old computer equipment than frobbing sixteen-year old girls.

'I must have been ill.' Bull. You stick yourself in a room full of mental vegetables and see how long it takes you to become depressed and angry. Try to sit through two years of high school after graduating college. Same feeling.

And what became of me? Well, I finished two degrees, and am on the 'fast-track' at a major company. I am well-adjusted, moral, and probably finished ahead of 90% of you 'WAVE-approved' sheep. The last generation of my family was almost locked up in a rubber room at Pleasant Ridge during the wave of profiling in the early sixties, for much the same reasons Ohio would have had me locked up. One is a lawyer, one is on her second doctorate, and the last is a published author and noted engineer. We are collectivly the cream of society. If your system would have us locked up as 'deviant', it needs to be rethought.

Checks and balances

[spiralx]

I was wondering what kind of checks and balances you would be applying to this system? Surely you must have considered the issues behind this beforehand and must have some kind of idea about how to separate the potentially dangerous from the depressed or prank victim. Given that the point of this is that fellow students are in a better position to notice behavioural problems, how do you as outsiders determine the validity of an anonymous call?

Given that Americans pride themselves on the various checks and balances inherent in the Constitution, I am curious to know how this system will be balanced. I believe that the underlying idea has some merit - after all fellow students are the most likely to notice problems at an age where parents generally aren't confided in - but in its current incarnation it seems it will simply lead to a deluge of pranks, hoaxes and wrong diagnoses. The flood of names supplied to WAVE may seem to validate its purpose, but in reality what is the use of this system in every teenager in America is on their lists?

Turn em' in

[SnugBoy]

How about offering teens some money to turn in jocks/popular kids that harras the kids that do not fit the "social norm". I would say that occurances of these rulling class students beating on/harrasing others BY FAR outwieghs the few random times that so called outcasts are pushed to the point of violence. If anything should be done, the people who are at the core of all this (the bullies) should be screened and not the victims

Re:Am I the only one...

[Hotaine]

Shhhhh! He only THINKS he's going there for a meeting. I actually called and turned him in. Got this nifty baseball cap...

Re:How will Pinkerton avoid misclassifications ?

[StormyMonday]

And more to the point, what kind of indemnety is Pinkerton willing to pay for false positives? Say, US$100,000 for each attempted suicide and US$1,000,000 for each successful suicide of any otherwise harmless geek? US$10,000 for each kid that gets beat up as a result of being turned in?

C'mon, Pinkerton -- if you're not willing to put your money where your mouth is, you're just another bunch of snake oil salesmen, trying to suck up to the public trough. Clever racket -- school shootings are so rare that nobody can really tell if your system works. *You* don't care if you ruin a few thousand lives, as long as you get the dough.

If you aren't willing to pay indemnities, then you don't believe in your own system. If you don't believe in it, why should anyone else?