Reason 1,254,995

Sunday 3 March 2013 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Education

Schools criminalizing behaving like a child.

It used to be that getting in a schoolyard fight meant a trip to the principal’s office—detention, maybe. But in Florida, more than any other state, that schoolyard fight can lead to the student’s arrest and even felony charges. Last year 12,000 students were arrested 13,870 times in Florida public schools, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The arrests are meted out unevenly. Black students are just 21 percent of Florida youth, but make up 46 percent of all school-related referrals to law enforcement, according to the Sun Sentinel.

The majority of the arrests, 67 percent, were for infractions like fist fights, dress-code violations, and talking back—schoolyard misbehavior that, in Florida and elsewhere, increasngly results in misdemeanor criminal charges. “The vast majority of children being arrested in schools are not committing criminal acts,” Wansley Walters, secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, told the Orlando Sentinel.

While Florida is not alone in turning to police to discipline young people, it has the distinction of being the nation’s leader in school-based arrests. Last year, Florida produced the highest documented number of school-based arrests in the country—and that number was an improvement over previous years. In 2005, Florida made 28,000 arrests in school. It has logged a 39 percent drop in school arrests over the last seven years, according to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

In most cases, 69 percent, the juvenile justice system ultimately dismisses or otherwise diverts the charges. But experts say getting hauled away from school in handcuffs nonetheless has a lifelong impact.

David Utter, director of the Florida Youth Initiative at the Southern Poverty Law Center, notes that getting arrested is, at a basic psychological level, a “highly traumatic” experience for young people. It can precipitate the breakdown in trust between young people and the adults in their lives, making what should be a welcoming and nurturing environment a hostile place.

The arrests also carry more measurable costs. Even when the arrest doesn’t go anywhere because, say, the state chooses to drop the case, a child is forever forced to answer affirmatively when asked on job and other applications whether they’ve ever been arrested. Statutes allow a child to have his or her record expunged, but expungements are not automatic, said Utter, and the state still holds onto personal data about a child. “It’s pretty damn permanent,” Utter said.

Forced to endure a life of questioning an arrest for talking back to a teacher as a sophomore in high school is fucking cruel. I won’t have my child subjected to the penal system for contempt of teacher, especially when, in my experience of 13 years in government schooling, the vast majority of them deserve nothing but contempt.

2013-03-03  »  madlibertarianguy