Youth Mobilization and School Criminalization—An Ethnographic Case Study of Student Activism in Los Angeles

• In Event: Latin@ Criminology Panel 4: Strategies of Resistance Among Immigrants, Students, and Prisoners

Abstract

This paper presents a set of findings from an ethnographic case study of a social movement campaign in Los Angeles, California. It is not uncommon for police officers, or school resource officers, to permanently occupy space and authority within public schools. Student misbehavior now commonly triggers contact with a school police officer, which also often leads to citation and/or arrest in school. This reality, along with the incorporation of additional surveillance technologies of the criminal justice system, zero tolerance policies in schools, and the unparalleled growth of America’s prison system, has resituated American public schools as key sites of repression, especially for Black and Latino students. This paper documents a youth led campaign working to challenge the aggressive policing practices in LA schools and the criminalization its students. This paper presents the political mobilization of current high school students in Los Angeles who are working within their communities to directly challenge school policies and reclaim their education, making explicit connections to organizing tactics and rhetoric during the Chicano movement in the late 1960’s. Interviews with student activists show how the Chica@/Latin@ and Angelino identities of students provide a framework for their movement against police in LA schools.

Author

• Analicia Mejia Mesinas, University of California, Irvine