Dr. Ivana Stevanović, director of the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, said in “Uranka” on K1 television that unfortunately what no one dreamed would happen in Serbia and Belgrade happened.
“These are the pictures we saw in the USA, which is everyday there. Psychologists and psychiatrists will talk much better about this, it is the so-called effect “express lonca“. If the information is really correct that the boy was excluded from society for years or suffered “bullying” in some way, that is a lesson we will learn from this, that in the future we should work on the value system and what is really important to us. The fact that the boy had such easy access to a weapon and the way he got it, walked into the school with a gun with I don’t even know how many rounds and did this in the schoolyard and classrooms is astounding to me.“, she said criminologist Dr. Ivana Stevanović and added that some things, no matter what they do, cannot be prevented.
She pointed out that 20 or 30 years ago there were cases where minors, good students, committed serious crimes.
“This is what the “pressure cooker” effect is all about, those kids killed family members because of some ban or a bad grade. This is something that has never happened in Serbia, but I cannot claim that it will not happen again. We live in a time that is completely different, unfortunately in the time of modern technology which, in addition to good things, has brought us some very bad ones. Our children suffer a lot of pressure both from their peers and from their parents, from expectations. It’s as if they forgot to be friends”Dr. Stevanović said on K1 television.
She warns that it is no longer a priority for children to be friends and that we, as a society and as a country, need to take a step back.
“This is a school that is considered one of the elite schools in Belgrade. Did we work enough with these children to make them friends? I don’t want to blame anyone at this moment, but we have to ask the question what parents expect from their children. There have been thousands of attempts to ban cell phones in schools, and parents have been against it. I’m afraid so this is not the first and last case and that we will face this in the future” said Dr. Ivana Stevanović, director of the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research in Urank.
(WORLD/K1)