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ANOTHER VIEW
Criminalizing the Classroom
"They're treating us like criminals, like we're
animals."
- Student at Curtis High School, Staten Island, New York City
"Sometimes the classroom feels like a jail cell."
- Jane Min, Flushing High School, Queens, New York City
Imagine if schools were places where youth were
treated like the precious people they are--where their creativity, their
curiosity, and their critical thinking were valued and encouraged.
Imagine if, in school and out of school, the youth were challenged and
unleashed and they were called upon to discuss and debate everything
from Shakespeare to religion, from the state of the planet to how
society--including their own schools--should be run. Imagine if the
rebellious spirit and questioning of the youth were not only not
squashed and corralled--imagine if it were valued as a crucial part of
revolutionizing society.
But in this society, we can only imagine this. And for
way too many youth, the experience is exactly the opposite. Schools are
ringed with fences and metal detectors. Instead of the sounds of debate
and lively discussion over string theory or globalization, the hallways
ring with echoes of cops, Glocks at their hips, screaming to the youth
to "Get the fuck back in line!"
When youth come to school, instead of knowing they are
coming to a safe place where they will learn and be learned from, they
live with fear: will they be frisked and humiliated in front of everyone
for no real reason? Will they be arrested if they wander out of the
metal detector line? Will they make it home at the end of the day, or
will they be taken to jail for swearing or getting into a fight?
An important report, "Criminalizing the Classroom: The
Over-Policing of New York City Schools," was released by the New York
Civil Liberties Union in March 2007 . It covers the experience of youth
in New York City, but it provides an all-too-rare glimpse at the
experience of youth all over this country, particularly Black and Latino
youth--the harassment, degradation, brutalization, and criminalization
that they are forced to endure when they come to school. The report is
drawn from interviews with parents, teachers, school administrators and
staff, and, importantly, surveys from 1,000 youth in New York City
schools.
In New York City, the public schools have been policed
by the NYPD since 1998. In the 2005-2006 school year, there were a total
of 4,625 cops (200 of them armed) patrolling the schools as so-called
"School Safety Agents (SSAs)." The NYCLU report points out that if the
NYPD's School Safety Division were its own police force, it would be the
10th largest in the country--larger than the entire police force in
Washington, D.C., Detroit, or Boston.
Cops Like School Prison Guards
Under the school "safety" program, any junior high and high school in
the New York public school system is subject to "roving metal
detectors." What this has meant is cops coming into schools unannounced,
setting up a military-style task force. In an approach very similar to
what U.S. soldiers do in Iraq, the cops swarm in, take over the school's
cafeteria or gym, and turn the school into a police zone, snaked with
lines of students waiting to pass through the metal detectors.
Students are forced to wait for hours in line as their
bags are searched and their cell phones (prohibited in the school
district) or cameras (not prohibited) are confiscated. And 21 percent of
the city's junior high and high schools now have metal detectors
permanently installed. At Wadleigh Secondary School in Manhattan, one
student who found a "roving" metal detector at his school called his
mother to come pick up his phone before it was confiscated--and was then
arrested when he tried to explain why he wasn't waiting in line.
These cops in the schools act like, and basically
function as, prison guards: barking orders, pushing and shoving
students, deciding arbitrarily what is and is not allowed on any given
day. Students' bags are searched, and everything from house keys to
spare change is confiscated. The cops decide what they will and won't
let students bring in to schools. For example, some students who had
permission to carry cell phones had them taken. Some students had their
iPods confiscated and never returned. And at an aviation magnet high
school, students had their engineering supplies taken for supposedly
being "weapons."
Cops have confiscated students' food and then eaten
it. Students are routinely yelled at and cursed at, and have reported
being physically shoved through the metal detectors or shoved against
the wall to be frisked regardless of whether they set off the metal
detectors. At one school, the cops taunted one student who was wearing a
nice coat, accusing him of stealing it. When one cop found a blank CD in
a student's backpack he said, "Is that rap? That's probably why you're
being searched." In one eight-month period more than 17,000 items were
taken from students in the "roving" metal detector program--70 percent
of them were cell phones, and 29 percent were iPods and similar items.
Not one gun was found.
The NYCLU report detailed numerous instances where the
cops actively terrorized and brutalized students. At one school, cops
chased students who tried to avoid the checkpoints, screaming, "Round
them up!" At Samuel Tilden High School in Brooklyn, a 17-year-old
student named Biko Edwards was walking toward his chemistry class when a
vice principal stopped him. When Biko protested not being allowed to go
to class, the vice principal called in a cop. The report describes what
happened next:
"Officer Rivera then grabbed Biko and slammed him
against a brick door divider, lacerating Biko's face and causing him
to bleed. Officer Rivera then sprayed Mace at Biko's eyes and face,
causing Biko's eyes to burn. Rather than treat the student, Officer
Rivera then called for back-up on his radio, and proceeded to handcuff
Biko [He]was taken to a hospital where he spent approximately two
hours being treated for his wounds, and spending most of his time in
the hospital handcuffed to a chair He faces five criminal charges."
And what happens to young women in these schools--are
they places where young women are treated as human beings with value and
intelligence, and not as a collection of body parts? Are the schools
themselves a place where young women and men are encouraged to debate
the oppression of women, and called upon to solve it? No--the schools
are places where women are harassed and groped by the armed enforcers of
the state themselves. One student reported that "the police like to put
their hands on kids without reason." And 27 percent of students surveyed
reported that officers touched or treated them in a way that made them
feel uncomfortable. Young women whose underwire bras set off the metal
detectors reported they were forced to lift up their shirts, supposedly
to prove they weren't carrying any weapons, or to unzip or unbuckle
their pants supposedly to prove they weren't concealing cell phones.
Young women have been searched by male officers, and the report says,
"students and teachers alike complain that male SSAs subject girls to
inappropriate behavior, including flirting and sexual attention." At one
high school, cops were heard making remarks about a young woman's body.
At another school, a gay student was humiliated every day as male cops
would flip coins to see who had to search him.
Teachers Also Targeted
And what about those teachers who really are trying to make a
difference? Who care about the students and despite low pay, cutbacks,
deteriorating buildings, and increasingly fascistic rules, and who are
really trying to connect with students and give them an education? Who
do not like the way schools are being turned into prisons?
The ACLU report exposes how teachers who dare to
defend their students are attacked and brutalized, sending a crystal
clear message to the youth: "No one is going to defend you. Look what
happens to anyone that does." Take one story recounted in the report:
"On March 8, 2005, at least seven NYPD officers
arrived at the New School for Arts and Sciences after teachers called
911 to ask for medical assistance for a student who had been involved
in a fight.
"Several teachers had successfully stopped the fight
and controlled the situation before the police responded, and Cara
Wolfson-Kronen, a social studies teacher, informed the 911 operator
that the fight had been defused. Despite this, one of the officers
demanded that the teachers identify the students who had been involved
in the fight and said that they would be handcuffed.
"Quinn Kronen, an English teacher, pointed out that
those students were now peacefully sitting in the classroom. Officer
Bowen responded by yelling: 'You fucking teachers need to get your
shit together. These kids are running crazy. You need to get rid of
them.' When Mr. Kronen objected to such language, Sergeant Walter told
Mr. Kronen that he had 'better shut the fuck up' or she would arrest
him. When Ms. Wolfson-Kronen objected, Sergeant Walter said: 'that is
it; cuff the bitch.' Officers arrested Ms. Wolfson-Kronen, paraded her
out of school in handcuffs and forced her to stand outside in
sub-freezing temperature without a jacket. They also arrested Mr.
Kronen.
"The teachers were detained at the 41st Precinct for
approximately two hours before being released. The charges against
them -- disorderly conduct -- were dismissed at their initial court
hearing, because their alleged wrongdoing did not constitute unlawful
activity.
"On March 22, 2005, Mr. Kronen and Ms.
Wolfson-Kronen received an anonymous letter signed by 'The
Brotherhood.' The letter threatened them with physical harm for
'messing up with our fellow officers' continuing: 'If I were you I'd
be planning my getting out of New York fast.'"
In October 2006, Adhim Deveaux, a math teacher at the
Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship, ran outside after
hearing that one of his students was being assaulted by a cop. After
seeing the student being slammed onto a car, Deveaux went up to the cop,
hoping he could calm the situation down; he said, "He's my student, I'm
his teacher. He's just a kid." In response the cop hit and shoved
Deveaux and then another cop grabbed Deveaux from behind, slammed him
onto the sidewalk and handcuffed him. Deveaux was taken to the precinct
and charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and
obstructing governmental administration.
This teacher was trying to defuse a situation before
it got worse: in any society where the police or other kinds of
authorities were really about serving the people, they would welcome
this and try to work with and rely on the teacher--and they would listen
when the teacher pleaded, "He's just a kid." But these cops arrested the
teacher, because enforcing repressive prison-like conditions in the
schools is what they are about--not trying to solve problems among the
students and teachers.
Criminalization of the Youth
The NYCLU report details numerous times where students were attacked
and/or arrested for petty and ridiculous offenses like swearing, being
late for school or refusing to turn over their cell phones. Their web
site mentions a case of a 13-year-old girl who was handcuffed and taken
into custody in May for drawing on her desk in school, charged with
graffiti. These are youth who are doing nothing wrong--and they are
being pulled into the criminal system and treated like criminals
themselves.
And this kind of criminalization of the youth is not
limited to New York City. Bob Herbert, a writer for the New York Times,
has written a number of columns about outrageous instances of police
brutality against youth, including a 6-year-old Black girl in Florida
who was handcuffed and driven to jail because she threw a tantrum in
kindergarten, and a 7-year-old Black boy in Baltimore handcuffed for
riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. Herbert points to the racist
discrimination involved in such cases. For instance a 14-year-old Black
girl in Texas was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2006 for shoving
a hall monitor (she was recently released) while a white girl in the
same town convicted of arson was sentenced only to probation.
Commenting on how students are "belittled, shouted at,
cursed at, instrusively searched and improperly touched by cops," Bob
Herbert points out: "This poisonous police behavior is an extension into
the schools of the humiliating treatment cops have long been doling out
to youngsters--especially those who are black or Latino--on the city's
streets." ("Poisonous Police Behavior," June 2, 2007)
What kind of message is this sending to the youth?
Schools should be places where the youth are encouraged to test and try
out limits, where they are encouraged to make mistakes, where the most
important thing is making sure their minds are really challenged and
unleashed. But not in this society. When a young woman is handcuffed for
drawing on a desk, or a 6-year-old is handcuffed for throwing a tantrum,
this is a reflection of how this society views youth. And the message to
the youth themselves here is unmistakable: This is not your world. Your
lives don't matter. The only future this system has for you is a shit
job or prison. And when the cops arrest these youth, these illegitimate
and bogus arrests are used to "prove" that the youth really are
criminals, and to isolate these youth further from the rest of society.
It is not simply that these cops are racist, brute
thugs who hate and fear the youth they are charged with
controlling--although that is unmistakable after reading things like
this report. The outrageous and brutal use of the police in the schools
and more generally against the youth reflects the role of the police in
enforcing exploitative and oppressive relations in society, including
national oppression. These police are not in the schools (or anywhere
else) to "serve and protect" the people. They are there to serve and
protect the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation that many of
these youth face with the highest unemployment and worst housing,
education, and health care.
The report states that "during the 2004-2005 school
year, 82 percent of children attending high schools with permanent metal
detectors were Black and Latino, a minority enrollment rate eleven
percentage points higher than in schools citywide. At DeWitt Clinton
High School in the Bronx, the largest high school with permanent metal
detectors in the city, there are 4,511 students and not one school
librarian."
What kind of system is it, where youth are forced to
go to overcrowded, under-funded schools that look more like prisons than
places of learning and growth? What kind of system treats the energy,
the creativity, the rebelliousness of youth, as something to be snuffed
out, rather than cherished and unleashed? What kind of system has
enforcers who harass youth for not going to school--and then harass and
even arrest them, for petty bullshit, when they do?
Those who peddle the lie about America being the "land
of opportunity where any kid can become president," who prattle on about
the "value of education" and "no child left behind"--while saying and
doing nothing about the prison-like conditions in schools--have no right
to speak about "individual responsibility" and how the youth need to
take make "better choices."
To quote Pink's song "Dear Mr. President":
"How can you say No child is left behind? We're not
dumb, and we're not blind They're all sitting in your cells While you
pave the road to hell"
Linda Flores
19 March 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/flores06192007.html
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