Wise, 12
The Presence of the Police in Schools
Beneficial or Detrimental to African American Males
Shante’ Wise
Southern University at New Orleans
Abstract
Over the years both state and federal legislators have continually supported the increased presence of police officers in schools. Due to the rise of mass shootings within the schools, safety and on ground support has become crucial. Police officers are positioned in an atmosphere with little to no training working with youths, and their own bias is not addressed. The question now is this strategy effective or detrimental to minorities; preferably African American men. Minor infractions once dealt within the schools are now falling into the court system. School suspensions and expulsions have increased by over 150%. Put there to make the students and faculty feel safer; the consequences are producing destructive results. African Americans and minorities are being disciplined at rapid rates, and many are leading to arrest. African American men are being poured into the school to prison pipeline. There has to be a more effective method that can ensure the safety of students, as well as, provide more productive outcomes.
Introduction
The presence of law enforcers in the American educations system has been in existence since the 1950s. These officers are given the title “school resource officers- SROs.” The goal of police in the institutions of learning is to offer security to young people. However, there has been a growing concern on whether the presence of police in American schools is detrimental or beneficial to the Black-American students. According to human right activists drawn from the African-American race, the presence of law enforcers in the American education system has been criticized for fuelling hatred and stereotype to the African-American students (Wun, 2016). Indeed, police brutality against African- Americans is a societal problem which has been reflected in the education sector. In the recent past, violence against African-Americans has been on the rise.
According to 2013-14 civil rights data, there is a higher chance of an African-American student being arrested compared to his or her white counterpart (Wun, 2016). The number of disproportionate arrests of black students has been on the rise in 28 states. The same report by the civic groups showed that no other race in the US whose students are arrested more than the African-American. A further investigation by the Education Week Research Center found that black students account for 39 percent of enrolment in the public schools in Virginia. Out of this population, 75 percent of the students have faced school-based arrests. Another state with significant black student arrests is Louisiana, where 69 percent of black students face school arrests (Wun, 2016).
More so, the arrests are more likely to occur to black boys compared to their white male peers. For instance, the Education Week Research Center found out that a black boy is three times likely to be arrested compared to a white going student while an African- American girl faces a 1.5 times risk of arrest compared to her white schoolmate (Lee, Bank, Cause, McBeath, & Newell, 2015). Discrimination of the black students is made worse by the presence of police in schools. Critics of the presence of police in schools argue that arrests and referrals on minor misbehavior such as classroom arguments and vandalism are made easier by the very existence of police in schools. According to Allison Brown, a former lawyer and executive director of the Communities for Just Schools Fund “when police are consistently present in black and brown communities, they criminalize behavior they wouldn’t in other places (Tatum, 2017)”. Such sentiments are echoed by students’ bodies and religious leaders too. Therefore, it can be argued that the presence of the police in the institution of learning is detrimental to the psychological and academic well-being of black students.
Another concern among the parents, educationists, and civil society groups is whether the SROs are well trained to deal with issues relating to the psychological needs of the child (Manning & Bucher, 2005). With the police being poorly trained on how to handle minor offenses, the overall impact is the school-to-prison pipeline theory. The school-to-prison pipeline is defined as the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds (in this case the African-American student) to become incarcerated due to harsh school and municipal policies (Morris, 2012). Facts from this theory have shown that the black students are disproportionally imprisoned thereby depriving them a chance to finish their education. Indeed, critics of the school-to-pipeline theory argue that the police presence in school has replaced the role of the parents, counselors, and teachers. The theory advocates for “zero-tolerance” policies (mainly from black and brown students) that criminalize minor infractions of school rules leading to arrests of such wrongdoers by the cops stationed at the school. Some of these infringements could be handled inside the school. As noted earlier, students of color are the primary victims of the school-to-prison pipeline (Morris, 2012).
While working on the impact of SROs in Chicago schools, Michie, and educational scholar, found out that the number of suspensions and expulsions among the black students increased by 51 percent and 21 percent respectively over four year period (Silano, 2012). Moreover, SROs hurt the running of the campus in the USA. The use of the zero-tolerance policy has created animosity between the students and the cops, in the schools. Indeed, educational experts have argued that the interaction of law enforcers with the students at a young age hurt “hardening such student.” As argued by Michie, police handling indiscipline cases among the students are inclined to “escalating minor, non-violent infractions into violent, criminal incidents that have negative impacts on students (Silano, 2012)”.
In summary, the critics of SROs argue that the very presence of police in school does not always provide safety to the students. For instance, there are numerous instances in which cops have been accused of mass shooting of students- most of whom are the black students. Moreover, the cops are not equipped with the necessary skills to deal with minor crimes such as juvenile deliquescence and depression among the students. From the above arguments, this paper will show that the presence of police in schools is detrimental to African-American students.
Literature Review
In this section, the investigator will analyze some of the past materials that focus on the impact of SROs on the quality of education given to African-American students. In particular, the investigator will focus on the literature that criticizes the presence of law enforcers in American schools. One of the strongest critics of SROs is the New York Civil Liberties Union. Indeed, in a study that was conducted by the union in 2014, it was established that 95 percent of the black students surveyed reported that the officers were disrespectful, discriminatory, verbally abusive, and made the students (African-American) uncomfortable in school (Donohue, 2017). On the contrary, only 12.5 percent of the white students felt that SROs were a bother to their stay in school. Also, a majority of the parents and the school community agreed that the cops were verbally abusive and disrespectful to colored students (Donohue, 2017).
According to Bracy (2010), negative experiences between the police officers and the students make the learning environment uncomfortable which may have an impact on the overall academic performance of a student. Bracy (2010) further observed that students who interacted more with the law enforcers felt more comfortable in school. Therefore, it can be argued that poor interaction between black students and SROs implies that African-American students are not psychologically prepared to learn. McDevitt and Panniello (2005) agree that interaction between SROs and the students can help improve security in the institutions of learning through community policing. However, such an exchange may not be the case in SROs-black student relationship whether the students are always viewed as a suspect. However, racial diversity in the US has been blamed for the perceived failure of SROs since the program has succeeded in Turkey.
The relationship between SROs and the students’ rights has been investigated by various scholars. For instance, the issue of ethics and vulnerability of the students have been investigated by various scholars. Bucher and manning (2005) argued that the presence of law enforcers in school not only dis-orients the students’ mind but also victimizes the students. For instance, juveniles from vulnerable populations (Africa-America) are likely to be taken advantage by the SROs since they lack cognitive abilities to understand their (students’) rights. Not surprisingly, there is an increase in the number of court cases pitting the schools and students in the USA. A majority of these cases involve unfair treatment of the students by the law enforcers. However, in the mid-1970s court decisions mainly favored the schools.
There is also concern about the mental suitability of the SROs to handle issues that are student based. For instance, the federal laws require that it is illegal for a firearm to be in the hand of persons who “have been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution. However, both the law enforcers and the merchants of guns are frustrated by the system in which medical checkups are done. For instance, as a retailer what could you do if a person passes a background test and you do not have authority to check if he is lying? The law enforcers do not have access to mental health records as they are stored by a separate entity in Oklahoma (Lessig, 2009). Indeed the system is so weak that it is straightforward to pass the federal background test. Most of these tests are fraudulently attained thus do not represent the actual state of mind of the gun holder. Although legislation on mental requirements on the handling of guns exists, it is not possible to fully implement them as the process of determining the mental stability of the person is weak (Lessig, 2009) as such guns are easily owned by people who are not in the right state of mind.
There are reported instances that show that police officers in the schools are not qualified to deal with minor offenses committed by the school-going students. For instance, a 14-year old African-America boy was arrested by a cop in Prince William County on allegations that the boy had stolen a carton of milk (Karteron, 2017). However, the reality of the case was that the boy had forgotten to pick the milk yet he qualified for free lunches. In this case, the SRO failed to investigate before arresting the boy. In yet another case, a 7-year old black student was handcuffed by a resource officer for disrupting his (officer’s) elementary school. Moreover, in Alabama, a federal judge ruled that Birmingham SROs used excessive force by spraying students with pepper and tear gas at a school for resisting to be arrested and posing a threat to other students (Karteron, 2017). In this case, the majority of the students were African-American. In conclusion, the children and human rights activists in the USA feel that the SRO program is aimed at strengthening the discriminative zero tolerance policy and should be abolished.
Methodology
In this section, the investigator will focus on the methodology used in data collection. In particular, the investigator will mix both the qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. By the qualitative method, the report will give views of the investigator and other scholars on the impact of police presence on the Africa-America students. Under the quantitative approach, the investigator will focus on the mathematical aspect of the investigation. Moreover, the report will be based on deductive reasoning where the investigator will be interested in explaining why the presence of police is detrimental to the African-American students. While using the deductive approach, the investigator will rely on theories (school-to-prison pipeline theory, principles, policies (zero-tolerance) and hypotheses to make conclusions.
Furthermore, the investigator will rely on a mixed approach in data collection where both primary and secondary approaches will be used. Primary data collection will be based on a survey research design where both questionnaire and interview data collection tools will be applied. One hundred questionnaires will be administered to key stakeholders in the American education and security sectors such as teachers, parents, psychologists, security experts, and students. Interviews will be conducted to the security experts, educational managers, human rights organizations and student unions. The researcher will seek permission from the targeted respondents before scheduling the interviews. Telephone calls and emails will be used to book an appointment with the interviewees. For questionnaires, permission will be sought through emails or referrals from colleagues and friends. Secondary data collection tools such as the internet, peer-reviewed journals, magazines, past investigations, and textbooks will also be used in this study. When sampling the target population, the investigator will use a probability sampling technique. Under the probability sampling, the researcher will select the representative sample using stratified sampling technique. The importance of using this technique is to ensure that the proportion of black respondents is higher than that of white or brown respondents. According to Amaratunga, Baldry, Sarshar, and Newton (2002) stratified sampling helps in minimizing bias in the responses. The proposed ratio of black to white respondents is 6:1 respectively. The analyzed data will then be presented using charts and graphs for consumption by the readers.
Results and Discussion
The investigator found that there was no correlation between students’ color and the behavior exhibited by the student. However, it was established that the color had an impact on the risk of being arrested. For instance, a black male student is three times likely to be arrested while in school compared to his fellow male school mate of the same age. However, the results were much positive for the black girl child whose chances of being arrested were 1.5 times compared to her feminine friend. Indeed, the arrests on the black student included pretty offenses such as arguing with fellow students, demonstrations, among other minor offenses. However, similar offenses when they were done by the white students were ignored. As shown in the screenshot below, there is a higher likelihood for a black and brown student to be arrested compared to the white students.
The investigator was also interested in determining the impact of SROs race and the interaction with the black students. Interestingly, it was established that the white police officers were four times likely to arrest a black student compared to the black officers as shown in the pie charts below:
The mass shooting by shooters and police is another issue that is affecting the education sector in the US. This investigation was also interested in focusing on the impact of SROs in terms of providing security to the students. Although the investigation established that there was a significant drop in the number of the mass shooting by a civilian to students, the number of shooting attributed to the police on colored students was found to be on the rise. Indeed, the increase in the number of shootings in schools or near school was seen as a hardening experience for young students.
The interview conducted on the security experts revealed that the police offers which are manning schools are poorly trained on how to handle students in the lower grade or even at the campus level. Lack of training on how to manage minor offenses by the police has been attributed as the major cause of conflict between the students and the police. Rioting in the colleges is mainly thwarted by police using pepper and water spray with some incidents of a live shooting happening. The investigation has established that in such confrontation, the victims are mainly colored, students.
Conclusion
Throughout this investigation, the researcher has demonstrated that the presence of police officers in the US schools is detrimental to the African-American student owing to the discriminative nature of the SRO program in the country’s education system and the society at large. From the various scholars and results given above, it is evident that the SRO program does not benefit the black student in terms of protection of the student’s dignity. As has been demonstrated, African Americans and minorities are being disciplined at rapid rates, and many are leading to arrest. African American men are being poured into the school to prison pipeline. There has to be a more effective method that can ensure the safety of students, as well as, provide more productive outcomes. As a recommendation, the US government should pass legislation that requires registered gun holders to visit a psychiatrist to have their mental abilities checked regularly. Also, citizens applying for gun licensing should be subjected to EI (emotional intelligence) test and IQ (intelligence quotient) tests.
References
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