Happy Slapping
attacks definitely seem to be on the rise in the UK and are becoming an
increasing problem in some schools now. If you haven’t heard about
Happy Slapping, it involves slapping a victim (or even more violent
acts), filming the results on video phones and sharing the film over
the web and via Bluetooth.

If you think that this sounds like youthful high jinks and fun, some of
it probably is. But there’s also a dark and violent underbelly that
involves real, hard, nasty criminal violence. You can watch some of the
videos of Happy Slapping here, but it’s nasty stuff - you have been warned.

But now we have Mr Adrian
Bailey, the Labour MP for West Bromwich West, calling for schools to
jam phone signals in the vicinity of schools. This should sort the
problem out he thinks and stop those damn fool Slappers.

The problem Mr Bailey seems to have overlooked in his futile attempt to
dive on the Happy Slapping bandwagon, is that this will have no more
effect than suggesting jamming cuckoo clocks in schools. The Happy
Slapping phenomenon doesn’t rely on phones being able to connect to a
network. The video cameras still work. And mostly the videos are passed
by Bluetooth or over the net. And even if you did want to send a video
across a network, you’d still have the film and could simply wait until
after school to send it.

Furthermore, mobile phones have many legitimate uses by students,
teachers and parent within the school grounds - or anyone else who
comes within range of jamming equipment. Emergency calls are just one
example.

So even if Mr Bailey’s damn fool suggestion would actually work, it’s
likely to create more problems than it was trying to solve.

Mr Bailey couldn’t have demonstrated his complete ignorance any better than if he’s had "arse" tattooed on his forehead.

Since most of these attacks are filmed on 3 video phones though, you
could just make it a criminal offence to carry one. There’s another
over-the-top, knee-jerk reaction Mr Bailey - why not write to the
School’s Minister today?

Story: The Observer/ Education Guardian.