Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified North Carolina as the location of a teen's violent in-school arrest.
Dive Brief:
- As of June 30, 2016, Atlanta Public Schools will cancel its contract with the city's police department for security provisions in schools, instead opting to create and train a new security staff accountable directly to the district.
- The new security team may be more expensive than using city police, which cost the district $5.6 million annually.
- The shift comes after a warning from Mayor Kasim Reed, who said not using police may have "catastrophic consequences."
Dive Insight:
The move by the district can also be seen as an effort to stem the flow of the school-to-prison pipeline. The use of police, who are typically not trained specifically to deal with children and adolescents, has resulted in some high-profile scandals nationwide.
In South Carolina, one teen's violent arrest was videotaped via cell phone, leading to an investigation of the arresting officer. And in the San Bernardino Unified School District, 30,000 students were arrested between 2005 and 2014 by police, and 27,000 of the arrests were misdemeanor offenses. A total of 36% were on charges of "disturbing the peace." Regardless, California still leads when it comes to dismantling the pipeline.
Nationwide, U.S. schools currently staff a total of 14,000 School Resource Officers. But their presence has been linked to a 500% increase in students arrested for disorderly conduct.
Large urban districts have served as leaders in school-to-prison pipeline reform efforts. Furr High School in Houston used to suspend 30 students daily for minor infractions. Since retraining police to act as mentors instead of disciplinarians, it has significantly decreased those statistics.
Some states have also implemented legislative solutions to mitigate the criminalization of student behavior. There are a variety of alternatives to zero-tolerance disciplinary measures for educators and district officials to consider.
