The Minister of Internal Affairs, Taulant Balla, and the Minister of Education, Evis Kushi, presented this Friday the new security package in schools. It will be the local police and the municipalities who will determine the security perimeter of 50 meters around the boundary fence of each school across the country.
Minister Balla also warned of legal changes regarding criminal offenses that endanger the safety of students, starting with the sale and distribution of narcotics, and further illegal possession of firearms and cold weapons, as well as any act of violence or exploitation of prostitution.
Within 90 days, the municipalities will have to take all measures for the placement and maintenance of road signs within the security perimeter. Balla also announced the establishment of a special Task Force headed by the prefect of the district to ensure that these measures are taken.
The new security package presented by the minister:
Public safety
- First, we will standardize the definition of the concept of Safety Perimeter in schools as those physical spaces around schools, where children stay, interact and spend part of their time before or after learning and which includes the streets and alleys around the school boundaries as and all commercial activities (shops, kiosks, business units) that are carried out within this space.
- The local structures of the State Police, in cooperation with the Municipalities, will identify and determine the security perimeter of each school, according to the assessment of the situation on the ground, but in any case not less than 50 meters around the boundary fence of each school.
- We will undertake a new criminal approach in relation to offenses that endanger or compromise the safety of children within this Security Perimeter.
- Within this month, we will propose a package of legal changes to toughen the punishment for criminal offenses committed within the Security Perimeter of schools, starting in the first place with the sale and distribution of narcotics, and further the illegal possession of weapons of fire and cold weapons, as well as any act of violence, exploitation, prostitution or pornography.
- Our main objective is the prevention of criminality and the use of narcotic substances among young people, as well as the uncompromising attack on the drug distribution network in the Security Perimeter in schools and at the national level. In the following days and systematically in the following weeks, I expected the Police, in cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office, to achieve significant results in the fight against “spacefarers”. This is a National Operation, the largest ever conducted, under the direct command of the Director General of the State Police.
- With concrete actions, we must convey to students and young people the feeling of closeness and trust they should have towards State Police employees and Security Officers in schools.
- Employees of the State Police who, by their actions or inactions, break the trust of the youth and the community and tarnish the uniform of the police, by tolerating, turning their heads the other way, or worse, becoming accomplices of the crime committed in Security Perimeter, will be automatically and permanently excluded from the ranks of the State Police.
- Commercial businesses that engage in serious criminal activity within the School Security Perimeter will face the full force of the law up to closure and confiscation of assets. I want to be clear here! A bar, that bar in front of the school, within the Security Perimeter, where it will be proven by the Police and confirmed by the prosecution and the court, involvement in the criminal activity of distributing narcotics, will be deprived of the right to exercise commercial activity .
- Regarding road safety, we will ask the Municipalities to take all the necessary measures for the installation and maintenance of the road signs, vertical and horizontal, and the necessary traffic lights within the Safety Perimeter of the schools, within a period of 90 days from today. At the end of this term, through the structures of the Traffic Police, we will monitor the state of the safety signage and take punitive measures against the mayors, provided by law for fulfilling this obligation.
- Applying the highest penalty provided by the Highway Code for speeding on roads that are included within the school’s safety perimeter. I believe that the Assembly of Albania, the majority and the opposition, will support us if it will be necessary for new changes in the Road Code, which are related to the safety of children, students on the roads within the Safety Perimeter.
- In cooperation with educational institutions, we will make sure that the vehicles for transporting students are well identified with the relevant logos and signs, in a unified way throughout the country, and circulate in high technical safety conditions.
Food safety
- Starting Monday, September 4, we will ask the National Food Agency (AKU) for increased checks across the country on food service operators of various categories operating in the school security perimeter regarding food safety conditions.
Urban security
- We will ask the Municipalities and the IKMT, starting from Monday, September 4, to carry out a plan of coordinated inspections to verify the situation in the Security Perimeter of the schools: we must make sure that within the Security Perimeter of the Schools, to respect construction safety rules, to have no debris or dirt of any kind for a healthy environment.
Hygiene and smoking in schools
- We will impose the implementation of the restrictive smoking ban not only in educational institutions but also in the entire Security Perimeter in schools.
- Monitoring by the State Health Inspectorate of the implementation of hygiene and sanitary norms in all pre-university educational institutions. The crime that happens every day in open violation of the law, selling alcoholic beverages to minors must end. The law has been amended and strengthened for four years. The State Health Inspectorate and the State Police must do the job. The sale of alcohol must be banned.
Task force
- We will set up a special Task Force, headed by the Prefect of the district, to ensure that measures are taken within the perimeter of security in schools.
School safety officers
- You, the School Safety Officers, have a very important role in implementing the school safety package. As the liaison between the school and the State Police, you must report and manage in a timely and responsible manner all situations that may endanger or compromise public safety. Our goal is to prevent criminality and hit without compromise all criminals who dare to carry out illegal activities in the Security Perimeter.
- In the coming days, in cooperation with MAS, you will have ready the weekly report that will have to be completed by the Security Officers in the schools and sent to the State Police regarding all the situations found in the exercise of the duty in the school and the Security Perimeter.
- Thanks to the closeness of Security Officers in schools with students and their closer cooperation with State Police employees, we must make it possible to raise awareness among young people and educate them with the culture of legality, the correct use of the Internet and social networks, avoiding bullying, cybercrime to the detriment of minors and preventing those situations that could put the life and future of the new generation at risk.
I want to assure the public, parents, grandparents, but also the students themselves, that we will do everything so that this new School Safety Package makes a big difference, and tomorrow does not resemble the present./abcnews.al
