Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 14, 1990 TAG: 9005120265
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH NORDGREN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Long
In Chicago alone, four young men have died in little more a year over multi-colored, satiny jackets with splashy team logos across the back.
Those not dying for their clothing might instead be robbed.
On an icy day this winter, an 11-year-old boy was forced to hand over his $61 gym shoes to four youths, then walk the several blocks to his home barefoot, one of scores of incidents that occur each month, police say.
"Kids who try to keep their jackets are beaten or killed," said Sollie Vincent, commander of the Gang Crimes Section of the Chicago police. "It's a very cold, callous frame of mind."
To combat the problem, schools from Baltimore to Miami to Los Angeles are falling back on an old idea: dress codes.
Some public schools even have instituted uniforms, traditionally associated with parochial schools.
"It's a definite trend," said Tim Callahan, a spokesman for the National Association of State Boards of Education. "Kids are going to learn best in an environment free of undue, inappropriate pressures, and certainly one that's free of violence.
"If clothing becomes a disruption to education, then we certainly are supportive of removing that barrier," he said.
"Starter" jackets - athletic jackets named for their manufacturer, Starter Sportswear Inc. of New Haven, Conn. - have sparked numerous crimes in Chicago, including four murders, police say.
In a grim acknowledgement of the garment's popularity, the police department last year created a separate category for "Starter jacket murders" in its citywide statistics.
"We are hoping these are isolated situations that are not long-term," said Thomas McAuliffe, human resources director for Starter. "We have a responsible attitude towards the communities in which we have operations."
Educators say dress codes that eliminate some popular items and, in some cases, gang colors, not only help stem violence but allow students to concentrate on learning.
"We try to discourage children from buying hot items," says Jim Murray, assistant principal at a middle school in Chicago's troubled Englewood neighborhood. "When they don't wear those items to school, they don't have problems."
"We have found that, subtly, it is changing attitudes," Alberta Mitchell, counselor at Hendricks Academy, said of the Chicago public elementary school's new uniform policy.
"The children are not supposed to wear gym shoes, so that eliminates the problem of buying brand-name gym shoes symbolizing status," Mitchell said. "We are trying to eliminate the problem of children feeling like they have to have designer-type clothes. It seems to have a calming effect."
In Chicago, as in many of the nation's largest school districts, dress codes are the prerogative of individual schools.
In Baltimore, uniforms are recommended, although not mandatory, for elementary school students, and a dress code is suggested for secondary schools. Educators say uniforms now are the norm at 74 of the city's 118 elementary schools.
School officials can't recall any crimes over clothing since the policy was instituted last fall, and Baltimore police say the problem virtually has disappeared.
"It still happens, but not with any frequency," said police spokesman Dennis Hill.
Next fall, high schools in Detroit will have the option of adopting a dress code. The new policy by Detroit's Board of Education was prompted in part by the December shooting of a student over his $135 goose-down jacket.
Detroit police say crimes over clothing are on the decline.
"It's not like the old days 10 years ago," said Sgt. Christopher Buck.
In New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, a high school principal earlier this year barred students from wearing removable gold caps on their teeth, saying the faddish caps were robberies waiting to happen.
But the new policies have not been cheered in all quarters.
In March, high school students in Palmdale, Calif., enraged by a new anti-gang dress code, boycotted classes and pelted a sheriff's patrol car with rocks.
And there is some support for student resistance to the dress-code trend.
Laws allowing schools to require uniforms are "a way of trying to see that all students look alike, act alike and think alike," said Jane Whicher, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois.
"It's important for children to have an appreciation of their own individuality as well as the constitutional values that protect that individuality," she said. "Orthodoxy in apparel is not something a school board should be involved in."
Requiring uniforms might also pose a financial hurdle for the poor, Whicher said, but some families are applauding the trend.
"Parents seem to really like the idea," said Shel Erlich, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest public school system. "It certainly cuts down the amount of arguing in the morning over what the kids should wear to school."
by CNB