Youth / OPINION : Metal Detectors: ‘It’s Like a Jail’

If they have metal detectors, what is that telling the students? For one thing, it’s telling them that the faculty of the school and the school district don’t trust them. I was offended.

It is an insult and against civil liberties in the sense that they don’t trust us. Supposedly, school is somewhere where students can come and it’s safe and they don’t have to prove themselves. They don’t have to be protected. But if they have metal detectors, what is that telling them? That it’s like a jail. That it’s so bad they have to do this.

With the impression that something bad happened, the students that act up, they see the metal detectors and try their hardest to get a gun in or a knife in, even though they wouldn’t do it before.

Things get through. Especially if they’re not checking everybody. If they’re going to do it, they should check everybody. That way they won’t discriminate against anybody. Most of the girls they won’t check. But even though they left me alone, it still bothers me to think they’re classifying people. What’s to say that just because this person is dressed this way that he’s going to carry a gun or that he’s a gang-banger?

Lynwood is not how they portray it to be. We haven’t had gangs at our school for awhile. But when they put the metal detectors at school, my aunt called and said, “What happened? Why are there metal detectors at your school? Is it that bad?”

That’s stamping a person just because they live in a certain neighborhood when they have nothing to do with gangs. So what does that give me to think about? What’s the point in studying? What’s the point in trying to excel when I’m going to get out in the real world and they’re going to discriminate against me because of the area I came from? It stamps you as a certain kind of person: This is a trouble-maker. Stay away.

Most of the problems we have at school are just because some kids want to mess around and start something. But they won’t start something if they see more security people there. If it were to get really, really bad, put in more security people.

Times staffer Kevin Baxter conducted these interviews.