The Growing Problem of Over-Policing Our Schools

Imagine being four years old and put into handcuffs because you and your friend wouldn't take a nap in your pre-K class. Or being five years old, handcuffed, and taken away from your school by ambulance to a hospital psychiatric ward after throwing a tantrum in the kindergarten room. These scenarios might sound far-fetched, but both are true stories that captured the local media's attention after they happened to children at their New York City public schools. The over-policing of public schools--not just in New York, but around the country--is one more threat to our nation's children at risk of entering the pipeline to prison.

In New York, the expanded police presence started becoming especially obvious about ten years ago when the New York Police Department (NYPD) took control over school safety from the Board of Education. By the start of the 2005-06 school year, the NYPD employed 4,625 School Safety Agents in New York City schools--more personnel than there are officers in the police forces of Washington, DC, Detroit, Boston or Las Vegas, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) report, Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools. In addition to increasing the numbers of these school safety agents, who are unarmed but can make arrests, the city also launched the Impact Schools Initiative, in which armed police officers have been deployed in the city's "most dangerous" schools. Modeled after the NYPD's Operation Impact program for fighting street crime, the initiative is designed to flood those schools with armed officers and surveillance cameras. Over the last five years, a total of 28 schools have been designated as "impact schools."

A June 2005 report by the Drum Major Institute found that impact schools were among the most overcrowded and underfunded in the city and serve a student body that is disproportionately poor, Black and over-age for their grade. Another report by Fordham University found that targeting a school as an impact school led to a significant decline in attendance there. This is exactly the opposite of what schools serving poor, at-risk youths should want to happen. But since the NYPD-takeover of school security, many students and teachers have said that their schools feel more like prisons than places of learning.

One English teacher described the scene this way in the NYCLU report: "On this random Wednesday morning, scanners were set up in the cafeteria of the public high school in the South Bronx where I work. Students' bags were placed on a scanner, they were forced to walk through metal detectors, and any item deemed inappropriate for school--including food, keys and spare change--were taken away. Many students were patted down, some even with their hands on a police car. An overwhelming ratio of adults to students made the cafeteria seem a lot like a police station... [C]an we please not treat already-struggling, inner city teenagers who have gotten themselves to school like they've committed a crime?"

In some ways, the sense that too many schools are turning into prisons is very real. Students are learning that many school disciplinary incidents, including the kind that used to end with a trip to the principal's office, can now lead to an arrest. The NYCLU recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request in order to obtain police arrest data, and learned that the NYPD has illegally arrested over 300 students under age 16 for non-criminal violations such as loitering and disorderly conduct. Under state law, children younger than 16 can only be taken into custody without a warrant if they have committed a crime, not a violation. But the incidents mentioned earlier about the four-year-olds at a Bronx public school and the five-year-old Queens kindergartener only highlight how soon children can be at risk of over-policing in schools.

In response to the excesses of school policing in New York City, the NYCLU has convened a Student Safety Coalition to address the school-to-prison pipeline in that city and promote solutions. Children's Defense FundNew York is an active member of this coalition and is working with others to promote positive approaches to school safety and discipline. We are also collaborating with the NYCLU and a group of other organizations on the School to Prison Pipeline Mapping for Action Project, whose goal is to map out current policies that push children out of school and into the juvenile justice and adult criminal justice system, so that changes can be made to stop them. It's an important step, and the problem certainly doesn't begin or end with New York City. At-risk schools in New York and across the country deserve to be flooded with resources and support instead of police. And students at those schools need to be applauded and encouraged for being at school and wanting to learn, not made to feel as if they are criminals just for trying to go to class. It is time to treat children as children and not as criminals--especially at very early ages.

Marian Wright Edelman, whose latest book is The Sea Is So Wide And My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, is president of the Children's Defense Fund. For more information about the Children's Defense Fund, go to www.childrensdefense.org.

Comments

[cybrarian75x]

“The “school-to-prison pipeline” describes an alarming trend wherein public elementary, middle and high schools are pushing youth out of classrooms and into the juvenile justice and criminal justice system.Und­er the banner of “zero tolerance,” schools increasingly are relying on inappropriately harsh discipline and, increasingly, law enforcement, to address trivial schoolyard offenses among even the youngest students.” ACLU 2007
“Hearing sponsors in Florida heard testimony from innumerable witnesses, including prosecutors and juvenile court judges, who expressed grave concerns that schools have turned away from education-based approaches to discipline and now handle far too many instances of typical student misbehavior by relying on law enforcement and the courts, and imposing punishments that needlessly remove students from school. “NAACP 2007

In May 2007 Congressman Rangel addressed the United Federation of Teachers. He cautioned against allowing the streets to educate our youth. Rangel called for government incentives to develop youth and not give up on those who have fallen. He reminded us of the 2 million children who are “locked up” and the high cost of incarceration of these children;the incarceration which costs the taxpayer approximately $100,000.0­0 per annum for a youth-offender on Rikers Island.

Today, Rangel advocates for more resources in the schools.“I­f we can spend 10 billion dollars on an unnecessary war, we can feed the minds of our kids.” said Rangel.”We cannot survive by losing one half of the brain power.”

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[Eli Davidson - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for your very important post.

Promoting safety in our schools and in our daily interactions is a key component of a healthy society.

I am so grateful for the incredible work you do for all our children.

Thank you,
Eli Davidson

[OldUncleDave]

A police state is coming to America. In NY they're getting people used to it at an early age. By the time these kids are out of high school, checkpoints and patdowns will be normal, decreasing the likelihood of resistance.

[Alexis Clark]

I mentor a high school student in Harlem and she has been frisked and harassed by police officers in subway stations going to and from school. She has a student metro card to use the subway and because she looks older, officers assume it is not her card. To treat innocent student like criminals is quite dangerous. It encourages rebellious behavior and threatens the fragile self-esteem of vulnerable youths.

Unless police officers, child psychologists and education instructors come together to discuss a plan of action, we will see more pre-K students in handcuffs and more medal detectors in the schools. Perhaps a massive letter campaign to Education Secretary Arne's office would help. Clearly NYC school chancellor Joel Klein is turning a blind eye to an very serious matter.

As an adult, I find it dehumanizing when I enter a facility that has medal detectors or an environment that requires searches. I can only imagine how a student feels having to go through that every single day.

[GrandmaKP]

When school children do not use and sell drugs, when they don't attack each other with knives and guns, and when they no longer abuse each other with violence, intimidation, gossip, thievery, and extortion, then remove the security officers.

My sons and my grandchildren have been in schools that were safe for children because security was visible and valued by the school community.

Please do not weep for people walking through metal detectors. Instead, be glad that officials are preventing stabbings and shootings. Violence in schools is a a reality that cannot be ignored. So, effective administrators have devised safety systems that work to prevent serious problems, as well as designing programs of intervention, isolation, and treatment.

Thirty-one years as a middle school teacher gives me validation : children learn curriculum in a safe school environment. They learn frightening and violent "street stuff" in unsupervised situations. For this reason, I also believe that in a classroom, there should always be 2 or more adults such as trained parent volunteers, retired teachers, guest presenters, paid aides and/or security personnel.

Furthermore, campuses should be locked while security cameras alert staff to possible threats.

Adults who do not provide adequate security for kids are foolish, naive, and negligence. But, with strong "safe schools" policies in place, learning happens!! Kids and families are relaxed and confident! And, journalists spotlight student achievements, not school disasters.

[Nommo]

Strikes me that the author was speaking of something completely different. You might go back and read the post thoroughly. Adequate security is one thing. Police state tactics are something else altogether. The harassment of students entering a school building can in no ways be healthy. Daily passes through metal detectors, confiscation of personal items is not enhancing security, in fact it does the opposite, violating students in the place where in fact they should feel safe.

When solutions are as bad as the problems they are supposed to fix, no progress is made. There is a difference between the welfare of the students and the welfare of the state. All to often, as history will show, the failure to see that difference does more harm than good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.