On Feb. 19 at Haddonfield Middle School, an internet safety and security seminar was presented to students during school hours, and then to district parents in the evening.
A joint venture between the Haddonfield Police Department and Camden County Prosecutor’s Office High Tech Crimes Unit, the night session was a frank and open 90-minute discussion and conversation between law-enforcement officials and borough adults.
Subjects of the presentation for parents centered around social-media use, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and most importantly, the need for privacy settings for all accounts.
“We have to take responsibility. I’d say 95 percent had phones as 11-year-olds. Today, they were given a taste of what’s out there, what to be afraid of. I know kids want privacy but you need to have their passwords. You need to look at their phones, not every minute of every day. Let’s be parents first, and friends second. Safety starts at home,” said HPD Chief Jason Cutler.
“We made the presentation to about 160 sixth-graders, and it was very eye-opening. As they’re learning and getting older, coming of age and having this technology we never had when we were growing up. Now we put thousand-dollar phones in kids’ hands and expect them to go about their business.”
Detective John Cochran and Agent Kaitlin Sell from the High Crimes Unit returned to give a fuller auditorium than last year the full scoop.
“Myself and Agent Sell, we go to schools all over the county, and we enjoy doing it because this is not just our job, but our passion. We don’t want to see kids victimized because they’re children, and we find coming out to schools, speaking to children and parents, we get ahead of that,” he noted.
“My parents had to worry about protecting me on the playground and when I was around the neighborhood. Our job now, there’s a whole different world where we need to keep our kids safe and that’s online.”
Cochran said speaking to kids has been the greatest information source and key to deterrent for their department, as, when he and Sell talk at schools, the students readily provide a list of social-media sites and app names of which they’re not aware.
Included on the list were nine main social-networking sites, such as Twitter, Instagram, Kik, What’s App, Tumblr, TikTok and the most popular site at the moment, Snapchat. Fifteen different apps were also deemed necessary for parents to be aware, among them: Bumble, MeetMe, Whisper, Grindr, Holla and Badoo. Most of the aforementioned deal with dating, and the possibility that a predator could contact a child for nefarious means.
“Now, there are phones, iPads, so many ways to communicate with classmates inside and out of school at all times. If something happens in school, it can carry over at night,” Sell explained.
“Examples of cyberbullying are posting negative comments or spreading rumors online, posting embarrassing or inappropriate pictures of someone online, sending threatening or abusive messages.”
Sell added that as many as 200,000 students will stay home from school daily due to cyberbullying, and bullying of any kind is a major factor in school shootings and suicides. She implored parents also to look for signs of cyberbullying, such as when a child pulls back from activities they’re interested in, or if he or she becomes secretive when operating a phone or other electronic device around adults.
Resident and parent Jami Harting made those in attendance, including the detectives, sit at attention when she likened individual apps to traditional night-time entertainment.
“To put it in the parlance of my generation — each of these things is like being in a bar or nightclub, and you’re (the children who use them) all in with the people who are drinking and drugging and God knows what else,” she said.
Both Cutler and Cochran stressed that any warrants issued for inappropriate content — such as evidence of cyberbullying or child pornography — would be issued to the parent/guardian/owner of the phone or device from which they are found.
“We push constantly for privacy settings for the kids. And we want to push again for privacy settings for parents as well. Get involved, before we have to be,” Cochran concluded.
For more information, contact the HPD at (856) 429-4700 x250, or by visiting: www.haddonfieldnj.org/departments/police_department/index.php. To reach the County’s High Tech Crimes Unit, visit: camdencountypros.org/unit-list/high-tech-crimes/.
