Outsourcing School Discipline to the Judicial System

According to juvenile justice advocates such as the ACLU, the School to Prison Pipeline prioritizes incarceration over education due to several factors including failing public schools, zero tolerance policies, increased reliance on police for school discipline, "alternative schools" for disciplinary problem students, court involvement and juvenile detention. Each of these has inherent dangers for children already most at-risk for failure.

Inadequate resources in public schools leads to disengagement for poorly performing students and, according to the ACLU, in some cases encouraged dropouts "…in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act…"

Zero tolerance policies impose suspension or expulsion for minor rule infractions, such as bringing nail clippers to school. Suspensions increased from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 2002. Schools increasingly "…ignore or bypass due process protections…" for already disenfranchised students, increasing the likelihood of dropout and involvement in the criminal justice system.

Policing in school hallways has evolved far beyond the archetypal hall monitor students of old. Now many schools employ school resource officers. The presence of these officers has been causatively linked to significant increase in school-based arrests.

Sadly, the National Association of School Resource Officers (SRO), NASRO proclaims "school-based policing is the fastest growing area of law enforcement." Another organization for SROs, the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing states their primary focus is to "…preserve order and promote safety on campus…" rather than rehabilitate misbehaving youths.

In fact, recent news reports indicate the presence of SROs is criminalizing juvenile behavior which previously would have been considered appropriate for in-school disciplinary action; and, perhaps, a call to the youth's parents. The Pittsburgh area demanded SROs following the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut. This was quickly recognized as ill-advised. According to NASRO Executive Director Mo Canady,"There is a little bit of knee jerk reaction [out] there to want to put SROs in just to defend against an active shooter situation which we completely understand but really most of them are never going to face that."

In Atlanta "…more than 50 school officers have been investigated…for everything from domestic violence, to shoplifting, to lying under oath." Parental reports also came out alleging violent altercations between students and officers resulting in criminal consequences for the students and no consequences whatsoever for the officers involved.

A group of researchers from the Beasley School of Law at Temple University published Arrest Decision Making by School Resource Officers. One of the study's key findings was the majority of school-based arrests were based almost entirely on subjective analysis of an incident. In many cases officers cited "attitude of the student" as a major component in determining whether they made an arrest. This study further found that most SROs were unaware of any restorative or rehabilitative options. In fact, most SROs did not factor in consequences to the arrestee at all in comparison to "disruption of the school environment". Most surveyed SROs regularly bypassed available in-school disciplinary procedures in favor of arrest and removal for incidents and allegations in which the officers' opinions about the incident and the student were the only considered "facts".

"SROs rated the potential consequences that the arrest would have on the misbehaving student as the fourth least important factor to the arrest decision…Students that experience harsh and exclusionary school discipline responses tend to struggle with school and are more likely to reoffend and face incarceration as adults—a phenomenon that has been described as 'the school-to-prison pipeline'. Certainly, the direct connection between schools and justice systems that is created when SROs make arrests threatens to hasten students' entrance into the pipeline. Even for students who are not at high risk of future criminal involvement, an arrest can have serious consequences such as impeding employment opportunities and college admission" (citation omitted).

Another report out of the Justice Policy Institute entitled Education Under Arrest: The Case Against Police in Schools goes even further: "Pushing kids out of school by focusing on law enforcement responses and punitive policies toward behavior ultimately results in more incarceration and reduced community well-being."

NASRO, the organization responsible for organizing and training school resources considers it their mission to "Protect and Educate" to promote "…safer schools and safer kids". Given the above, states should reverse this trend in the most logical way available: remove police officers from the school systems and institute more positive, proactive programs such as Teen Courts.

The bottom line is that the presence of police officers in schools leads to increased juvenile arrests. In Wyoming, where overall juvenile arrests are mostly for minor non-violent and frequently subjective categories such as status offenses, technical violations and disorderly conduct, removing School Resource Officers from the schools could result in an immediate and significant reduction in juvenile arrests and incarcerations.