The “school to prison pipeline” must end

By Michelle Chen, January 25, 2010

We need to stop militarizing our schools.

Across the country, school administrators are making cops and metal detectors as much a part of the school day as teachers and textbooks. So-called zero-tolerance disciplinary policies are transforming the campus into hostile territory, alienating communities and pushing vulnerable students to give up on their education.

The coercive climate extends beyond school grounds.

To children in poor communities of color, the school day is too often an extension of the crisis engulfing their neighborhoods, where violence, police abuse, drugs and joblessness loom over their streets and homes.

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A Recipe for Disaster: School Cops Are Being Armed with 50,000-Volt Tasers

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted September 16, 2009.

Tasers aren't 'nonlethal'; they've killed hundreds. With younger people being especially vulnerable to the Taser's shock, the risks could be very deadly.

One spring day this April, at the Franklin Correctional Institution on Florida's Highway 67, Sgt. Walter Schmidt pulled out his electronic immobilization device -- EID in correctional officer parlance -- and zapped two people, who immediately "yelped in pain, fell to the ground and grabbed red burn marks on their arms," according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The two were not inmates at the prison, however. They were students visiting as part of "Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day."

The move cost Schmidt his job, despite his claim that he merely intended to demonstrate how the devices worked. He had even asked the children's parents (who were also employees at the prison) permission first. "When they said 'sure,' I went ahead and did it," he told the Times.

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Schools seek more police as crime drops

February 18, 2009
Kristin Rushowy
EDUCATION REPORTER

The 22 Toronto public high schools assigned a police officer are reporting a drop in suspensions and criminal charges against students, and the success of the program has other schools lining up for officers.

In the first semester of the 2007-08 school year, the schools – which are scattered throughout the city – had a total of 1,353 suspensions. Last fall, that fell to 1,122, a 17 per cent drop.

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