A Web of Punishment: Race, Space, and School Policing in the City of Los Angeles

• In Event: Negotiating Structural Violence in School and Community Settings: Healing Through the Trauma

Abstract

Recent evidence shows that past 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 numerous ways policy 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 Department 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.

Author

• Terry Allen, University of California - Los Angeles