[Reader-list] Criminalising the Classroom

[Ananth]

June 19, 2007
What Kind of a System Does This to Its Youth?
Criminalizing the Classroom

http://www.counterpunch.org/flores06192007.html

By LINDA FLORES

    "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 writes for Revolution. She can be reached at:  
comolaflores at yahoo.com