By: Tiffani Toy
According to a New York Times article, there is a rise in the use of school resource officers in response to the Newton shooting. However, this article states there is unclear evidence that police officers are effective at deterring crime and removing dangerous threats.Yet, school resource officers arrest or issue tickets to minors for nonviolent behavior; this pushes more children into the criminal system. One example made by the deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a legal advocacy center in Austin, is that school resource officers in Texas write more than 100,000 misdemeanor tickets each year. This article is significant because it confirms the reading by Kupchik that the use of school resource officers has a detrimental effect on the students, especially on those of minority and low-income.
This article also explains that in February, Texas Appleseed filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (the press release can be found here). According to this complaint, school resource officers from Bryan Independent School District issue criminal misdemeanor tickets at a higher rate to African American students; they receive citations at four times the rate of white students. This complaint demonstrates that the use of school resource officers brings racial profiling into the schools and leads to more oppression of minority and low income population. As mentioned in the reading by Kupchik, school resource officers are trained as police officers and not as mentors to students. Thus, school resource officers are more likely to use what Harris explains as rational discrimination to determine which students are most likely to cause trouble. This rational discrimination basically claims that “targeting blacks is the rational, sound policy choice” (294 Harris). Racial profiling of young children creates more oppression at an earlier stage of life for these students.
Placing officers in schools may seem like a reasonable response to school shootings but has the detrimental effect of racial profiling on young students. So, in a recent period of pure chaos and violence, how safe is considered “too” safe?
I wonder what the demographics of school police officers looks like. There's been a push in precincts across the nation to promote diversity within police departments, and I wonder if school police have the same ambition. If there were more African-American cops in urban schools with high minority populations, there may be a stronger sense of trust between school police and students as well as less targeting of colored youth. My personal belief is that cops are necessary in urban schools with high levels of crime amongst its student body. Though, placing cops in schools in more suburban areas with less crime is potentially a bad idea.
ReplyDelete-Michael B
Tiffani,
ReplyDeleteInteresting article and great use of the readings.
It's frustrating to see not only violent incidents at schools, but especially the detrimental effects of policing methods used to counteract these events. The security measures at schools result in overpolicing, racial profiling, and further marginalization of those already disadvantaged. Additionally, as the article points out, "the kids hated the school police" which shows that the students grow up with the idea that law enforcement is a bad thing and not to be trusted.
--Michaela
The part of this that I am most troubled with, is how officers arrest and issue tickets to minors for nonviolent behavior. This is extremely disconcerting. These nonviolent issues could far more efficiently be resolved by school administrators, without having to force those students into the criminal system.
ReplyDelete~Adriana Regalado
It is a surprise that for a society keen on conducting studies on various subjects, very little is actually done to utilize these findings to make improvements. If studies show that there is unclear evidence that resource officers are effective at deterring crime and removing dangerous threats, then it would be far more effective for those who really know the students, primarily parents, teachers, and school councilors, to decidedly work hand-in-hand in handling misdemeanor issues.
ReplyDeleteSehun Lee
To be quite blunt about this, I am not too surprised that complaints of racial profiling in schools have been brought up. I mean these are the same officers that patrol the streets of the city at night. What would make one think that the officers wouldn't use the same techniques and procedures that they utilize while patrolling the city at schools? It doesn't seem to far of a stretch to acknowledge something like this could easily occur. At my high school, there was a city police officer who was our resource officer. Criminalizing minor incidents and school related issues by using the law and police officers as a means of enforcement, definitely introduces the young immature students to the criminal system too early on. This could have a desensitizing effect upon them and lead them later on in life to pursue criminal behavior. School issues should be dealt with school personnel, not with police officers holding a gun, except for the very few and unfortunate instances where they are needed. Counselors, teachers and peers should be the first line of defense in cases involving students. By introducing officers in to the equation, techniques used on the streets with more dangerous criminals now get used with young teens. Schools are no place for a criminal intervention by the police.
ReplyDeleteDega Gebre
I agree with your idea of a desensitizing effect on young students. If students experience degrading police interactions on a daily basis they will distrust the police. In addition, these students will respond to this hyper-criminalization in similar ways as the boys in Rios' study (most of which were negative effects).
DeleteIn addition, your proposal of counselors, teachers, and peers as a first line of defense is a very plausible solution. Peers also play a significant role in the aid of high school problems by suggesting fair consequences. For example, the end of this article attempts to put forward a solution to this problem. The article describes a unique situation with a high school that enforced discipline through a principal's court and student juries (instead of being sent to criminal courts).
- Tiffani Toy
High schoolers make mistakes. (I know I did all the time) Putting cops in schools makes these mistakes a criminal issue that will follow them for the rest of my life. We had police officers at our school, and I was arrested for doing a little racing after school. Yes it is illegal, and dangerous, but my parents punished me far worse then the law did. However what the law did do was give me a record, which complicated the process to join the armed forces five years late. My story is nothing compared other stories such as ones in Rios' book. But it is still important to note that dumb mistakes that someone who has not even gone completely through puberty makes, can mess up his/her adult life. This chance is heavily increased with putting officers in school campuses.
ReplyDelete-Yunus
When an issue that can be handled by the school administrators is instead handled by law enforcement, criminalization of behavioral problems take place. This process cannot be beneficial to the young high school students, as they construct hypercriminalization. School policies that enforce exclusion and threat of police to the students instead of finding the root of the problem seems ineffective to me.
ReplyDeleteJackie Ji Park
Racial inequities, a facet of some of America's most shameful historical legacies, is seen in this New York Times article as being propagated in education procedures and practices. Rather than create solutions to advance academic excellence, such practices are instead diverting essential resources away from districts and students alike. The zero-tolerance policies implemented in maximum-security schools have created a tense and perturbed learning environment that only facilitates pushing youth of color into the arms of law enforcement at a rate disproportionate to their white counterparts. By profiling students of color, racial marginalization is compounded in the most basic elements of society, that being the institution of education. If we are to see a reversal of this trend toward discrimination against students of color, schools should refocus their priorities on distributing school resources to those districts and students with the greatest need. If law enforcement presence in schools is in fact necessary, another policy recommendation would be to implement school police officers of diverse backgrounds and races, thereby reducing the chances of biases towards students of color.
ReplyDelete- Christine Sun
Tiffani:
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog and great use of incorporating the Kupchik reading. It also does not surprise me that racial profiling is prevalent in these schools. Nor that the resource officers that are patrolling these schools are actually the ones to cause such criminalization on the minority youth. Just as we have learned through the safe schools logic, such implementations actually due the opposite of what is intended and make matters worse. Here, it appears that minority students are being targeted and are thus creating racial discrimination.
-Maria T. Perez
Like many others, I too find it concerning that police officers are treating disciplinary violations as if they are criminal acts. I think it is vital for young people to have these youth support groups and be given the opportunity to make a number of mistakes without being given a stigma as a criminal. Part of growing up is making mistakes. Youth shouldn't be given a criminal record when their lives are just beginning, otherwise they have no way of escaping stigmas.
ReplyDelete-Laci Patiga
while police officers might make faculty feel safer, the use of police officers in schools also make school officials reliant on police for issues that they can handle on their own. Also, as mentioned already, police officers are not prepared to work with students, they are trained to stop crime. As a result, the criminalization that youth of color face on the streets is being brought into their school environment.
ReplyDeleteMaria Campos
This article is an example of hyper-criminalization which turns everyday behaviors into crimes because there is more policing against certain individuals such as blacks/latinos. The over policing is also taking simple disciplinary violations which are non violent, and making them criminal and it is putting more kids into the system when they aren't even criminals.
ReplyDeleteThe over policing in schools these days are turning kids to believe that they are out to get them. Law enforcement in schools should stop racial profiling and actually help and support these students to make the right choices in their life.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article Tiffani! I like how you made several comparisons to Kupchik's reading. I wonder if the teachers at Bryan Independent School are aware of the racial profiling occurring. Is there a group of them working together to fight this?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the answer to fight violence is with violence. There are many alternatives to create safer schools, through violence talks, bringing in mediators/more approachable counselors, harsher punishments for people who do cause trouble (deterrence), heavier regulations for assault weapon accessibility, and more. I think that bringing in police officers to a school is a problem in itself, and racial profiling within that creates even more of a problem. We don't need to further push youth into stress/vulnerability. We need to help them and raise them up - from themselves, and others.
ReplyDelete