Why are cops putting kids in cuffs? federal funding, zero tolerance, and lack of choice encourage the creeping criminalization of student misbehavior.

AuthorSoave, Robby

WHEN 14-YEAR-OLD RYAN Turk cut ahead of the lunch line to grab a milk, he didn't expect to get in trouble. He certainly didn't plan to end up in handcuffs. But Turk, a black student at Graham Park Middle School, was arrested for disorderly conduct and petty larceny for procuring the 65-cent carton. The state of Virginia is actually prosecuting the case, which went to trial in November.

Chief among the many ironies of this story is that Turk didn't actually steal anything: He participates in Virginia's free lunch program, which entitles him to one complimentary carton of milk each day. On the afternoon in question, Turk had forgotten to claim his drink during his first pass through the line, so he went back. That's when the trouble started, for a very specific reason: A police officer spotted him and misunderstood what was happening. A police officer. In the cafeteria.

Graham Park Middle School is among the roughly 43 percent of public schools in the U.S. with a School Resource Officer (SRO): a cop specifically assigned to patrol the school. SROs exist ostensibly to keep students safe and classrooms crime-free. But the staggering increase in their ranks over the last several decades has produced thousands of questionable suspensions and arrests. Many due process advocates and education reformers now wonder if the presence of so many cops is actually undermining school discipline.

It shouldn't fall to law enforcement to scold unruly kids: That's a job for teachers, principals, and parents. Unfortunately, bad incentives--including state laws that limit school disciplinary options and federal programs that explicitly subsidize SROs--give schools plenty of reasons to keep hiring cops. Getting rid of those incentives would improve things, but the best solution might lie outside traditional schooling entirely. For students around the country, school choice reforms--which engender new and different ways of thinking about discipline--are already offering a vision for a saner system.

Because there's got to be a better way to teach a kid to wait his turn in the lunch line.

'MY LIFE COULD BE COMPLETELY RUINED BY THIS'

TURK'S CASE STANDS out because of how petty the state's behavior was, but outrageous examples of police interference in schools aren't hard to find. Take William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood, New Jersey. On the last day of classes last spring, a third-grade boy said something about brownies that another student interpreted as racist. It's likely the kid was talking about chocolate desserts rather than dark-skinned classmates, but that's something the school should have worked out on its own. Instead, it called the cops to investigate an unintentionally offensive remark made by a 9-year-old.

"There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying, 'Tell me what you said,'" the boy's mother, Stacy dos Stanos, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "He didn't have anybody on his side."

The investigation did not end there. Collingswood police interviewed the boy's father and referred the case to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency, which handles instances of child abuse.

It was not the first time something like this had happened in Collingswood. Superintendent Scott Oswald confessed to reporters that administrators at his various schools were in the habit of calling the cops as frequently as five times per day. This in a district that contains only 1,875 students.

School officials had fallen into the habit of reporting virtually every infraction of school rules--even "simple name calling"--to the authorities. Parents were furious. Why were schools outsourcing student discipline to the police?

"The reality is, cops are blunt instruments," says education reform advocate and editor of Dropout Nation RiShawn Biddle. "Cops are there to arrest people. It's what they do. Putting a cop in a school means you are subjecting your students, your children, to the possibility of being arrested and all the things that come with law enforcement."

Collingswood teachers, at least, had to take the extra step of calling the cops. Such is not the case for schools, like Ryan Turk's, that already pay a designated SRO to roam the halls. Last May, in Superior, Wisconsin, a parent called Superior High School's principal to inform him that several male students were circulating nude images of her 15-year-old daughter on their cellphones. The daughter, "Kim," had sent the photo to one boy via Snapchat; this student then saved a screenshot of the photo and passed it along to his friends.

Violating another student's privacy is a more serious abridgment of school rules than taking a milk carton or mentioning brownies, and it would have made sense for administrators to discipline the people involved and teach them a lesson about respecting personal boundaries. Instead, the principal asked his SRO to handle things. The officer, Tom Johnson, began by interrogating the teens and collecting their phones. They mostly cooperated, unaware that they had committed a cardinal error when dealing with law enforcement: not lawyering up first.

In the course of his investigation, Officer Johnson also interviewed a 17-year-old male student, Austin Yabandith. Austin was Kim's boyfriend, and he was heartbroken to learn that she had sent a sext to someone else. Johnson asked Austin if Kim had sent him photos as well. Austin said yes, they had exchanged nude texts. They were sleeping together too. Kim's parents were OK with it--they had even supplied the young couple with condoms, according to Austin.

Johnson then asked...

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