Ethics Newsline®

ATLANTA
Hoping to take a bite out of student crime, a school district in Central Georgia last week signed on with a national program that rewards students for informing on classmates who may be breaking school rules.

The national Student CrimeStoppers program and similar initiatives reward students with cash for telling on classmates who may be carrying firearms, doing drugs, smoking on school grounds, or engaging in other forbidden activities

USA Today last week profiled a number of school districts across the country that have adopted such programs, noting that school shootings — like last month’s killing of nine students by a classmate in Red Lake, Michigan — often cause a flurry of interest.

“It’s a proactive attempt from the principal’s standpoint,” said Tim Hensley, spokesman for a school district that includes Model High School in Rome, Georgia, which will pay students up to $100 for information about rules violations.

A Texas school district has paid more than $2,100 to students so far this year for information on classmates selling prescription drugs and smoking cigarettes. A North Carolina school district has paid out more than $1,000.

“This year, we’ve given out $1,100,” Cherryville High School principal Stephen Huffstetler told USA Today. “For $100, they’ll turn their mothers in.”

While such programs are lauded by some school authorities, Russ Skiba, professor of educational psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington, cautioned that there may be a downside as well.

“There’s a balance here between creating a society of snitches and creating a sense of community responsibility,” warned Skiba, who helped review violence prevention programs for the U.S. Education Department.