As of September 3, police officers will once again be placed in public junior and senior high schools throughout the country on a full-time basis, police and education officials announced yesterday.
Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald said the government is going to take a "zero tolerance" approach to school violence.
"We in the Ministries of Education and National Security adhere to the old adage that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure," he said during a press conference at police headquarters attended by numerous stakeholders.
Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade said at the same press conference that police are drawing a line in the sand as officers have been given a mandate to root out possible criminal activity.
"If an officer has reasonable grounds...to suspect that a crime has been committed or is about to be committed, the law gives police that right to take action," said Greenslade.
"We're not only concerned about what's going to happen on school property but what happens to and from school.
"And we send the clarion call to all [that] if you feel that you will be able to interfere with school students to and from school, you are going to be making a mistake."
Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) President Belinda Wilson, who also attended the press conference, said she is pleased that police will be permanently reinstated in schools.
"The police [are] not only going to be there for crimes," she said. "They are going to be there to help with conflict resolution. They will be able to identify some of the problems prior to the problems happening. You will have intelligence on the ground in the schools because when you talk about a cutlass-wielding child, when you talk about the child that was in the altercation over the weekend and gets to school early on Monday and stashes a gun, a knife, a cutlass, that's not the teacher's job.
"[That's what] we're seeing. That isn't anything new. We've been seeing it. So...if the police are there and they are able to complement the security officers, then that should help to cut down the incidents that we've been seeing."
Minister Fitzgerald said the school-based police officers will also be responsible for developing positive relationships with school stakeholders and establish protocols for the prevention and investigation of all school related occurrences of violence and criminal activities.
The original school policing program launched by the previous Christie administration was abandoned by the Ingraham adminstration shortly after it came into office in 2007.
Instead of maintaining their presence on school grounds, officers were stationed outside of schools during peak hours.
But Fitzgerald said the presence of officers will restore calm in public schools and eliminate some of the fear that exists today.
Police were unable to give statistics on incidents of school violence yesterday.
A special two-day training seminar will be held next week at police headquarters for officers and key school officials involved in the program.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian