After months and months of study and consideration, Rutherford County School Board committed to having surveillance cameras installed on school buses Thursday night.
A third egregious incident on a county bus undoubtedly helped board members decided to spend more than $235,000 to place cameras on all the school system's big buses.
The cameras are intended to help prevent three shocking incidents in the past several months, two in which sexual assault is alleged and a third in which a bus driver is alleged to have been physically assaulted by two high school students, leaving the driver with a broken leg.
The nature of all three incidents obviously is a cause of great community concern, most especially for those whose children ride school buses.
The board has been extremely deliberate in making the decision to buy the cameras in large part because of concerns about whether the recording equipment will actually deter such outrageous occurrences.
Board member Donald Jernigan targeted that concern when he noted, "These cameras are not going to change behavior, just record behavior."
His point is certainly valid.
If the alleged behavior in the three incidents is proven true, concern for consequences, which is all camera recordings can provide, does not appear to be a major factor in the perpetrators' actions.
That then also calls into question even strict disciplinary action afterwards.
Unfortunately, much like the poor as a voice of truth long ago noted will always be with us, those who do not behave according to common sense and decency will also always be among us.
Despite these concerns, the board made the right move.
The cameras give parents and community members some hope that outrageous acts will hopefully be deterred in some part and definitely give intended victims some ability perhaps to thwart attack by making themselves and their proponents obvious on the recordings.
Cameras on buses are not the answer to such incidents of misbehavior, but they could be a part of the answer and certainly justify their cost. |
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