The article, by Erik Eckholm, surveyed the rise of “school resource officers” (policemen or non-police armed guards) in American school districts since the late 1990s. Eckholm found little to suggest that officers had made schools safer; he quotes University of Maryland school crime expert Denise C. Gottfredson as saying “There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety.” She concludes, moreover, that “it increases the number of minor behavior problems that are referred to the police, pushing kids into the criminal system.”
Eckholm assembles ample evidence to support this conclusion:
Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of students are arrested or given criminal citations at schools each year. A large share are sent to court for relatively minor offenses, with black and Hispanic students and those with disabilities disproportionately affected, according to recent reports from civil rights groups, including the Advancement Project, in Washington, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in New York.
Such criminal charges may be most prevalent in Texas, where police officers based in schools write more than 100,000 misdemeanor tickets each yearaid Deborah Fowler, the deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a legal advocacy center in Austin. The students seldom get legal aid, she noted, and they may face hundreds of dollars in fines, community service and, in some cases, a lasting record that could affect applications for jobs or the military….Black students in the school district in Bryan, [Texas,] [activists] noted, receive criminal misdemeanor citations at four times the rate of white students.
Strict policies surrounding juvenile crime and delinquency have created what some call a “school-to-prison pipeline,” wherein punishment of students, particularly those of black and Hispanic origin, pushes them out of schools via suspension/expulsion or legal action, making a life of crime more attractive. Criminal sanction is a particularly brutal funnel, as the “collateral consequences” of a youth criminal record can render young people unemployable for years, severely limiting their opportunities to make money legally.
Perhaps THIS is the real agenda driving this push to put armed guards into our nations schools, after all the conservatives LOVE new prisons, ESPECIALLY when they are privatized.
You know I worked in a school for troubled kids.
At first they just had a lot of unarmed security staff, and the calls to police were occasional.
But the year they put police officers in the school there was a kid getting hauled away in cuffs at least three times a week.
It is not the officers fault they are trained to deal with conflicts by locking people in cages.
On the other hand teachers are trained to educate children and help them to make choices that will keep them from ever having to lose their freedom.
See the difference?
Land of the Free: as long as you are male, white, and have parents with jobs.
ReplyDeleteHome of the big brave white male hiding behind an assault rifle and a cop.
The height of irony is those among us who fear Big Government being at the forefront of arming teachers - government employees.
ReplyDeleteBummer, thought that was a photo of Todd in handcuffs.
ReplyDeleteOne day it will be.
From your keyboard to...... -:)
DeleteCops in the schools . . . .not great! I see no black or brown males walking the halls after a couple of years of bubba cops arresting them for adolescent misbehavior they decide is lawlessness. I see an influx of private kiddie prisons where everyone is getting paid and young lives are ruined. Nothing but bleakness and disaster for many young minority males.
ReplyDeleteOn this one I disagree with you, Gryphen. It is because of the proliferation of guns in the US that I do indeed want one very well-trained armed guard in the schools. (And BTW, my 1970's high school had a police officer at the school - we also had open campus.)
ReplyDeleteIn a metro area of gangs, schools must have metal detectors and police, or the gangs woud run the schools.
Not only and a that, but you are a martial arts expert and a pretty buff dude IIRC, Gryphen. Have you noticed the size of the average 6th grader lately? Fast food, hormones and additives in foods are to blame, IMO. Bigger than a LOT of teachers. Add in families who shouldn't have guns keeping them unsecured, and kids on drugs, primarily prescribed, but in "finding the right dosage or going on or off stage" means too many kids "losing it" in ways they aren't responsible for, but can still do damage to others or themselves.
That said, yes, other means than arrest should be used, but I do want a cop there for my tall, but slightly-built and very smart, middle-schoolers safety.
Their school does have a resource officer-from the town police and I have no problem with that.
I don't think having armed guards in and around schools makes them any safer. One guard can't be everywhere at once, and I doubt anyone's going to foot the bill for one armed guard per child, which would be the gun lobby's biggest wet dream.
ReplyDeleteWe need good teachers and we need to teach our kids things like tolerance, effective communication and peaceful conflict resolution.
FWIW, my kids went to public schools in the suburbs of Philadelphia with no metal detectors nor armed guards. One of the high schools is fed by four grade school districts. They do have rare police presence, mostly a car or two at dismissal.