Youth violence is a powerful mover of hate crimes. In order for you to prevent the sprout of such behavior, read on and learn some tips.

Plan Ahead

1. Work with your school administration to establish a plan for responding promptly to hate incidents and hate crimes.
2. Educate school staff on how to recognize hate-motivated incidents and hate crimes.
3. Establish procedures for reporting hate-motivated incidents/crimes.
4. Establish school policies which clearly indicate that hate-motivated behavior will not be tolerated.

Response Strategies

1. Respond promptly to incidents.
2. Conduct a complete investigation of the incident, including the questioning of victim(s), witness/es and perpetrators. Report hate-motivated crimes to law enforcement. If there is physical damage – defacing, spray-pointing, etc. – take photographs. As soon as law enforcement personnel have viewed the damage and photographs have been token, have the damage repaired. If hate literature has been distributed, collect the literature for evidence.
3. Train school counselors to assist hate-motivated crime victims and/or provide referral sources to community agencies. Reassure the victim and or her family that the incident will be treated seriously.
4. Determine proper disciplinary action according to school protocols.
5. If your district has a reporting policy, submit a hate-motivated crime/incident report to the appropriate district offices.
6. Determine whether or not additional follow-up activities are necessary, e.g., staff and student awareness activities, responses to the media, etc.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Youth Violence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.