Black and Brown Students Criminalized in Class: Impacts of Police in Schools as Educational Policy

• In Event: 16.010 - Stop Killing Us! The Praxis of Morally Engaged Research Advancing Equal Educational Opportunity and Human Freedom

Abstract

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
-Marcus Garvey

Overview/Objectives. While the recent misdeeds of School Resource Officers (SROs) in US public schools have generated negative attention nationally, the policies that legislate their presence in schools are based on very local policy decisions. Arguably, the local policy decisions that place police officers in urban public schools populated by Black and Brown students are material extensions of curriculum violence (Ighodaro & Wiggan, 2011). The number of SROs that police these particular educational institutions is due to an historical shift in national cultural attitudes in the late twentieth century about the relationships between policing, schooling, and racially coded violence. “Super-predator,” was the trigger-word in the late 1990’s for signifying the relationships between the three concepts. This paper will explore these matters and propose decolonizing alternatives.

Theoretical Framework: Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides an apt theoretical lens to examine the national cultural shifts, the policies that emerged, and how those policies are implemented today to the whole educational detriment of these students.

Methods, Data Sources, Results. By utilizing composite narratives of actual events that amplify these conceptual intersections, this paper will illustrate some of the negative effects of SRO policies on Black and Brown students in US public schools these twenty years later.

Scientific Significance. We will employ a CRT lens to guide recommendations for reimagining these policy relationships in public education and learning environments.

References

Council of State Governments Justice Center. (2014). Officers in Schools: A Snapshot of Legislative Action. New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center.

Dekalb County School District. (n.d.). Dekalb County School District. Retrieved from Public Safety _ DeKalb County Schools policy for School Resource Officers.pdf: http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/public-safety.

DiIulio, J. (1995, November 27). The Coming of the Super-Predator. The Weekly Standard.

Equal Justice Initiative. (2014, April 7). The SuperPredator Myth, 20 Years Later. Retrieved from http://www.eji.org/node/893

Ighodaro, E. & Wiggan, G. (2011). Curriculum Violence: America's New Civil Rights Issue: Education in a Competitive and Globalizing World. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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Petteruti, A. (2011). Education Under Arrest: The Case Against Police in Schools. Washington: Justice Policy Institute.

Sneed, T. (2015, January 30). School Resource Officers: Safety Priority or Part of the Problem? Retrieved from U.S. News and World Report: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/30/are-school-resource-officers-part-of-the-school-to-prison-pipeline-problem

United States Department of Justice. (n.d.). The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Retrieved from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/

Author

• La Trina Jackson, Georgia State University