TWO TEENAGERS who violently attacked a classmate in a Paphos school, sending him to hospital with serious head injuries were yesterday charged with grievous bodily harm and released from police custody after two days on remand.
Child Commissioner Leda Koursoumba told the Sunday Mail that the latest violent attack by teenagers against a classmates on school premises was another example of all talk and no action by the authorities.
“We should finally ask ourselves: what we have done since last time something of this sort broke in the news?” she said. “Every time something like this happens, we end up discussing whether the children should be prosecuted and what we should do with them.”
The Child Commissioner was roped in last year to help with a law proposal to combat the phenomenon, and she has suggested the state engages experts, schools and the legal services to come up with a solution.
Her recommendations include a special court for under-18s, which doesn’t exist in Cyprus at the moment, setting up a team of experts to advise the Attorney-general, and deciding on appropriate penalties.
She said Cyprus has no safety precautions in place to catch anti-social behaviour earlier on, before children become violent.
“There aren’t enough counsellors at school and there is little coordination among services,” Koursoumba said, adding that it sometimes takes months for social welfare to act on problems.
On top of that, the secondary education system is flawed, Koursoumba said.
“If you are a chemistry teacher for example, you studied your subject and worked for 15 years in the private sector until your turn comes up to get a state job and you go for it because ‘it’s better’,” Koursoumba said.
Although primary school teachers train to be educators, most secondary school teachers don’t, and do not receive any training before taking up their post, an issue which needs to be addressed Koursoumba said. “We need to work on adults too,” she said.
“For example if you educate children at school but they encounter violence at home, then they will learn violence,” she said.
There is currently no real system to handle minor offenders, to prevent delinquent behaviour, or treat its causes, Koursoumba said. DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou submitted a law proposal in 2003 to regulate a number of issues dealing with minors. But why have nine years passed since the law proposal?
Nicolaou blamed the previous government for inaction as well the fact that “more urgent” bills arose during the period, putting the juvenile issue on the back burner.
“But it is a priority for us and it will be discussed immediately after the Easter holidays,” he said.
Last November, police suggested returning the minimum age for prosecution from 14 back to 12 after an assault by a 13-year-old against a classmate, who suffered a broken nose in the attack.
But this suggestion angered Koursoumba who said that raising the age for criminal prosecution from 12 to 14 in 2006 had been a victory for Cyprus. She further said that the then police spokesman’s comment that those under 14 commit crimes because they know they can get away with it was “very unfortunate.” Koursoumba said that attributing criminal responsibility to children was not the answer.
There should instead be scientific and sociological studies “to see how children get to that point (and) how to prevent it, she said.
But the attack in Paphos during the week was just one of an increasing number of incidents that go beyond schoolyard bullying and into the realm of actual violence with a weapon.
In the latest case involving the two 15-year-olds, one was wearing a knuckleduster, bought from a shop where they are sold out in the open.
Although selling knuckledusters is illegal, police say blaming the availability of a weapon is only half the story since most anything can be used as a weapon. “If you want to beat someone up you can [find a way to] do it…,” said the officer.
Indeed, in another incident of school violence in February this year a 15-year old boy in Paralimni pulled a hammer out of his school bag to attack a classmate.
But is throwing minors in jail the way to go?
In December a convicted sex offender allegedly raped a 19-year-old prisoner in the central prisons. “If you throw a kid in jail you are sending him to the best crime school,” said Nicolaou.
