Compensations for victims of school attacks are low – 05/12/2023 – Education

To avoid a wave of lawsuits in the face of increased attacks on schools, states and municipalities where these acts of violence took place have come forward to propose compensation agreements for victims. Repair values, however, have been low and do not cover all those affected, according to experts.

They explain that the legal discussion about the responsibility of the State is practically pacified. Even though it was an event that was difficult to predict, the Constitution establishes that the school is responsible for the safety of students and employees, so states and municipalities must financially compensate victims of attacks on units of their education networks.

Especially in attacks with many victims, the states have been quick to present an out-of-court settlement to the families to avoid individual lawsuits in which the reparation value tends to be higher.

For family members, the advantage is to receive compensation more quickly, as processes of this type can drag on for years.

“The government chooses to go ahead and present an agreement because it is faster and minimizes costs. Since the processes will be costly because they drag on for years. In addition to having a greater social appeal for providing a faster solution”, says the lawyer José Roberto Covac, specialist in educational law.

The government of Espírito Santo, for example, is preparing a package of around R$ 2 million to compensate the victims of the attack on the Primo Bitti state school, which took place on November 25 last year. Three teachers were killed and eight others were injured.

The total of BRL 2 million also provides for compensation to around 30 teachers and employees who were in the unit at the time of the attack, even though they were not injured in the action. Students who were on site are not included in the proposed agreement.

Individual values ​​were not revealed to preserve the families.

“We did a survey of how compensation was made in similar cases that occurred in the country and we evaluated that the settlement for the victims of the school in Suzano [alvo de um ataque em 2019] it was most suitable. We think it’s better to follow this way so that families receive the amounts as quickly as possible”, explains Rafael Almeida, chief prosecutor of the Espírito Santo Chamber for the Prevention and Administrative Resolution of Conflicts.

According to him, among the fatal victims, there were teachers who left underage children, therefore, the need for a quick financial solution to help families.

The agreement used as a model by Espírito Santo was established in 2019 after the attack on the Raul Brasil school, in Suzano (in Greater São Paulo). On that occasion, relatives of 18 victims (dead and injured) were compensated for material and moral damages. The values ​​were defined individually and were not disclosed.

One day after the attack, the then governor João Doria even announced the payment of R$ 100,000 for each affected family, but withdrew after criticism that the amount was too low.

After that, a commission was formed with members of the Public Defender’s Office and the state government to define values ​​according to each situation. The indemnities were not much higher than Doria’s initial proposal.

“In Brazil, compensation for the loss of a life falls far short of what is defined in other countries, such as the United States. The tendency in courts is to work with amounts paid in similar cases and states use these precedents to establish extrajudicial agreements “, says lawyer Luiz Fernando Prudente do Amaral, professor of public law at Faap (University Center Armando Alvares Penteado).

In Brazil, indemnities usually follow amounts similar to those paid to victims of police lethality, which range from R$80,000 to R$100,000.

“Here, the amounts only cover financial damage, without taking into account the moral damage that is reparation for suffering. In other countries, indemnities are usually higher, even as an inhibitory character for the public power to adopt actions to prevent further occurrences of the type”, explains Amaral.

Agreements generally leave out teachers, staff and students who were not injured but experienced attacks. Espírito Santo is the first to include civil servants who were on site to receive compensation, even though it left out students.

“The total number of people victimized by these attacks may be even greater than those covered by the agreements. Therefore, the families of students can file individual lawsuits, but they will have to prove that the psychological damage, for example, was caused by the attack” , says Amaral.

Last March, four years after the attack in Suzano, a São Paulo judge condemned, in the first instance, the São Paulo government to pay compensation of R$ 10,000 to one of the students who was at school during the attack and did not was injured.

The student’s family claimed that the boy came to stand in front of one of the shooters and had to pass through the bodies of two other victims to escape the attack. The student said that, four years later, he is still undergoing psychological treatment for the trauma and feels unsafe in school environments.

A survey by Stanford University (USA) identified that 100,000 American children studied, between 2018 and 2019 alone, in schools that were the target of attacks. The research found a higher incidence of antidepressant use and a greater possibility of school dropout and repetition among these students.

A survey carried out by Sheet with the ten schools, which suffered attacks in the last ten months in Brazil, identified that they have about 4,700 students.

“The possible negative consequences for these students need to be mitigated. The country has a very great weakness in access to mental care. If the public power does not adopt effective measures to reverse these effects, judicialization can be a path”, says Gustavo Samuel Santos , public defender of the São Paulo Public Defender’s Office for Childhood and Youth.