Vandalism and the Police Presence in Los Angeles Schools, 1954–1974

• In Event: Location, Location, Location! The Politics of Race and Space

Abstract

The following paper examines how perceptions of property damage led the Los Angeles Unified School District to expand its police presence between 1954 and 1974. Although vandalism was one of several interrelated causes for policing schools, it was more widespread than student violence and aroused discontent inclusive of but broader than the coded racism that drove much of the period’s educational policy. Indeed, the breadth and intractability of vandalism led to criticism from many quarters and a variety of responses, which only gradually turned toward police patrols. By analyzing the changing perspectives on property destruction, the paper underscores an element of contingency or indeterminacy in the origins of the school-to-prison pipeline, but also its inequitable foundations long before the 1990s.

Author

• Campbell Scribner, University of Maryland - College Park