Blumenau: Series of attacks on schools requires immediate action – 05/04/2023 – Daily life

In less than ten days, Brazil had two schools attacked. Five people (four students and a teacher) died. These massacres add to eight others that have been recorded in the country since August.

For scholars in the field, the proximity and similarities between the cases registered in the country require immediate action to contain the risk of a trend of continuing violence against schools.

“In eight months, we had ten attacks against schools, almost the same number previously registered in 20 years. There is a clear explosion of violence. And when looking at the profile of the perpetrators, we find a pattern, they are all male, with a speech of hatred and misogyny”, says researcher Cleo Garcia, who mapped the cases.

The study, carried out by a group that brings together researchers from Unicamp and Unesp, counted 13 attacks from 2002 to July 2022. Only from August of last year until this Wednesday, ten cases of this type against schools were registered.

“Although with different characteristics, these cases are connected and we need to see them as a broader issue for society. It is natural that we look for culprits for each attack, but they are not the result of an individual failure, but of a collective failure of our society”, says Lucas Hoogerbrugge, Master in Education from Stanford University.

Experts say that the attacks on schools are the result of a harmful mix that the country has experienced in recent years, with the strengthening of hate speech, the naturalization of violence and the higher incidence of mental illness after the pandemic.

“Intolerance and hatred were naturalized, incitement to violence became something banal. As a result, the signs and warnings that could prevent this type of attack are no longer observed. And these cases are spreading through a society that is sick” , says Hoogerbrugge.

For them, attacks targeting schools may be the result of a contagion effect. That is, the authors are inspired by previous actions to promote new massacres.

“There is a social contamination effect. People with a low level of empathy tend to connect easily with other people who have acted violently. They are inspired by these actions to act in the same way, it’s like the Werther effect in relation to suicide”, explains psychiatrist Gustavo Estanislau, a specialist in childhood and adolescence.

According to the Secretariat for Public Security, since the attack on a state school in Vila Sônia, in the west zone of São Paulo, on the 27th, there have been 55 occurrences of new threats against school units in the Demacro area alone (Department of Judicial Police of the Macro São Paulo), which covers, with the exception of the capital, the entire metropolitan region

“People are in a state of greater alert and this tends to be a common thread for more serious things to happen, such as bouts of depression or a psychotic break. It is the effect of contagion, even people who have nothing to do with schools end up resorting to this environment to promote attacks”, says Estanislau, a specialist in childhood and adolescence.

In this Wednesday’s attack (5), a 25-year-old man jumped the nursery wall and struck the children with a hatchet and knife. Four died and at least four others were injured. The author was arrested. According to the police, he had no connection with the day care center, and the choice of the location of the attack was random.

Psychologist Marta Gonçalves, professor of educational psychology at Instituto Singularidades, the succession of attacks against schools in the country is a warning of the need for policies to care for mental health.

“Simple and emergency solutions are not going to solve the problem. Placing the police inside the school or searching the students is not going to solve what is happening. Prevention depends on a broader plan”, says Hoogerbrugge.

This Wednesday, after the attack in Blumenau, the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government announced that it will issue an inter-ministerial decree to draw up a national policy to combat violence in schools.

Despite having received an alert in December of the need for action to contain the spread of massacres in schools, the government began to organize the policy after the attack on a state school in Vila Sônia, in which a 13-year-old teenager stabbed and killed a teacher.

The announcement of the creation of the working group was advanced to this Wednesday after the new attack. The policy will involve the Ministries of Education, Human Rights, Justice and the General Secretariat to promote a culture of non-violence in schools. The group will be coordinated by Camilo Santana and will last 90 days.

“All of this is the result of encouraging violence, weapons and intolerance,” the Minister of Education told journalists.

In addition, the government will make R$ 150 million available for states and municipalities to expand police patrols around schools.

“The President of the Republic has decided that the Ministry of Justice will strengthen its support for school rounds, school patrols. This will be done through a public notice. Let’s talk to Camilo [Santana] and state secretaries”, said the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino.

In addition, the minister announced that he will increase from 10 to 50 the number of police officers who participate in the deep web and dark web monitoring group. For Dino, attacks against children and young people, like this one in Santa Catarina, occur because there is “proliferation of hate speech in various spheres of society”, which he called a social tragedy.

The warning about the need for action was made during the transition by the working group on education. In a report, experts point out the importance of monitoring and regulating social networks, where extremist speeches and incentives for attacks circulate freely.

They also suggest the training of teachers and civil servants to identify behavioral changes in young people, such as an unusual interest in violent subjects and aggressive attitudes, refusal to speak with female teachers and administrators, use of discriminatory expressions and exaltation of attacks in educational or religious environments.

Collaborated with Marianna Holanda, from Brasilia