New Moral Army

The Omerta code of the teenager is universal and has always been so. Snitching is not on. But something strange may be happening in the US education system.

Take Westminster High in Baltimore. Here the student government, more usually preoccupied with planning the next dance or improving the catering, has started to pay fellow students for snitching on each other in a bid to prevent another Columbine massacre.

In its first three weeks, the initiative - dubbed "Project TIPS" - has netted two arrests for drug possession and two for setting toilet paper on fire in the boys' bathroom. The programme provides rewards of up to $100 for information that leads to a student suspension, expulsion or arrest. The unique and controversial scheme has raised a few eyebrows. Some worry that a climate of suspicion and snitching will lead to - rather than prevent - retaliation and school violence. Lauren Kimble, a 1987 graduate of Westminster High who teaches world history there and is faculty adviser to the student senate, says she understands those fears. "I was probably the first person when we talked about this to ask `Shouldn't kids give up that information without us paying them to do it?' " she told the Baltimore Sun.

"But that's in an ideal world. I don't know whether in the long run, if we stop something from happening and it keeps people from harm's way, I don't think whether we paid for that information will make a difference." "It's worked very well," says Officer Don Rimer of the Virginia Beach Police. "This kind of stuff was happening already - kids were already calling or notifying teachers, parents and administrators about certain behaviours, and that was being followed up. The only thing's that changed was the reward." Something is happening. In the past month, almost weekly, plots to violently disrupt schools have been foiled. From Kansas to New York, pipe bombs have been discovered, arms caches unearthed, and incriminating photos turned in. Students are fingering their own classmates.

These attempts at mass disruption - at least seven since January - are disturbing. But perhaps more noteworthy is the new-found vigilance that has taken root in urban and suburban classrooms alike - heading off the kinds of tragedies that have grabbed attention in recent years.

None more so than the Columbine massacre in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, when 12 pupils died at the hands of two of their own. But in its wake, a profound culture shift has hit the nation's classrooms and hallways. Educators have set up everything from video surveillance to zero-tolerance expulsion policies for threats and weapons possession. More police officers have been assigned to wander halls and monitor entrances. New courses examine anger management and ways to say no.

But what really succeeds is listening to the kids. "One of the things we've learned is that, prior to Columbine and other high-profile incidents in the last few years, somebody usually knows about school violence plots or plans," Kenneth S. Trump, a former security director in Cleveland schools, argues. Indeed, psychologists from the US secret service found that in almost three-quarters of 37 school shootings since 1974, the assailant told someone in advance about his plan, almost always another student. The service has been running a "Safe Schools Initiative", highlighting that reality.

PUBLIC perceptions about school safety seem at odds with the evidence that the risk for serious violence at school has not changed substantially over the past 20 years (see panel), and the proportion of students reporting that they felt too unsafe to go to school has not changed since the peak of the violence epidemic in the mid-1990s. Approaches to the problem are widely differing, ranging from what critics see as turning schools into fortresses to more subtle forms of dialogue with the pupils themselves. In the wake of Columbine and other high-profile school shootings, officials across the country have established anonymous phone lines and have increased the presence of school resource officers from local police departments.