Beyond Policing Students: Race, Space, and Discipline Policy Reform in the City of Los Angeles

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Desegregation, Resegregation, and Critical Policy Analysis

Abstract

Recent evidence shows that discipline policy reforms in the City of Los Angeles have largely failed to improve racial disparities. I argue that prior efforts failed to address the ways reform interacts with race and geographical space to influence arrests patterns, disciplinary infractions, and students’ reactions to policing. To examine this argument, I assemble data from Los Angeles School Police, and oral history interviews with 75 Black high-school students. Quantitative results indicate the substantially higher rates of arrest and disciplinary infraction for Black students, and the geographically concentrated nature in urban communities. Qualitative results indicate context-specific experiences and responses to policing according to larger structural conditions and the political economy. Implications for the reconstruction of discipline policy and practice are discussed.

Author

• Terry Allen, University of California - Los Angeles