Post by goddessoflight on Jun 14, 2007 8:12:46 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com
School to Prison Pipeline
By BOB HERBERT
The latest news-as-entertainment spectacular is the Paris Hilton criminal
justice fiasco. She’s in! She’s out! She’s — whatever.
Far more disturbing (and much less entertaining) is the way school officials
and the criminal justice system are criminalizing children and teenagers all
over the country, arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in
years past would never have led to the intervention of law enforcement.
This is an aspect of the justice system that is seldom seen. But the
consequences of ushering young people into the bowels of police precincts and jail
cells without a good reason for doing so are profound.
Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed
by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in
her
kindergarten class.
Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to
22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage
friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the
grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were
accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.
In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into
custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The
Baltimore Examiner, “They scared me.” Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the
arrest.
Children, including some who are emotionally disturbed, are often arrested
for acting out. Some are arrested for carrying sharp instruments that they had
planned to use in art classes, and for mouthing off.
This is a problem that has gotten out of control. Behavior that was once
considered a normal part of growing up is now resulting in arrest and
incarceration.
Kids who find themselves caught in this unnecessary tour of the criminal
justice system very quickly develop malignant attitudes toward law enforcement.
Many drop out — or are forced out — of school. In the worst cases, the
experience serves as an introductory course in behavior that is, in fact, criminal.
There is a big difference between a child or teenager who brings a gun to
school or commits some other serious offense and someone who swears at another
student or gets into a wrestling match or a fistfight in the playground.
Increasingly, especially as zero-tolerance policies proliferate, children are being
treated like criminals for the most minor offenses.
There should be no obligation to call the police if a couple of kids get into
a fight and teachers are able to bring it under control. But now, in many
cases, youngsters caught fighting are arrested and charged with assault.
A 2006 report on disciplinary practices in Florida schools showed that a
middle school student in Palm Beach County who was caught throwing rocks at a soda
can was arrested and charged with a felony — hurling a “deadly missile.”
We need to get a grip.
The Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union has been
studying this issue. “What we see routinely,” said Dennis Parker, the program’s
director, “is that behavior that in my time would have resulted in a trip to
the principal’s office is now resulting in a trip to the police station.”
He added that the evidence seems to show that white kids are significantly
less likely to be arrested for minor infractions than black or Latino kids. The
6-year-old arrested in Florida was black. The 7-year-old arrested in Baltimore
was black.
Shaquanda Cotton was black. She was the 14-year-old high school freshman in
Paris, Tex., who was arrested for shoving a hall monitor. She was convicted in
March 2006 of “assault on a public servant” and sentenced to a prison term of
— hold your breath — up to seven years!
Shaquanda’s outraged family noted that the judge who sentenced her had, just
three months earlier, sentenced a 14-year-old white girl who was convicted of
arson for burning down her family’s home. The white girl was given probation.
Shaquanda was recently released after a public outcry over her case and the
eruption of a scandal involving allegations of widespread sexual abuse of
incarcerated juveniles in Texas.
This issue deserves much more attention. Sending young people into the
criminal justice system unnecessarily is a brutal form of abuse with consequences,
for the child and for society as a whole, that can last a lifetime.
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