School Resource Officer Retrospective
On April 18 2006, in response to what school officials called an increase in the severity of physical confrontations between students, the Champaign City Council passed a resolution to approve an intergovernmental agreement with unit 4 school district that would put police officers in unit 4 schools.
The total operating cost for the city over a three year period to employ five officers to serve as "law enforcement officers, law related counselors, and law related educational instructors" is $1.068 million dollars to be paid by the city of champaign and $643,586
dollars to be paid by unit 4 schools (I mention the money part only because I know students in Unit 4 schools who can't take home textbooks to do their homework b/c the schools cannot afford to by extra books).
This "intergovernmental resolution," was called into question by a number of people who were concerned that the practices of racial profiling that the Champaign police are inclined towards (especially in the North End), would replicate themselves within the Unit 4 schools.
For those of us who have regular conversations with youth inside Unit 4 schools, it is no big secret that the police officers in the schools target black students for punishment. Since the SRO program was instituted, there has been very little public response from the
Champaign City Council, Unit 4 Schools, and the Champaign Police Department in terms of addressing the concerns raised at the April 18 meeting about racial profiling.
I was recently (like, today) returned my FOIA request about the school resource officer program and the numbers provided by the Champaign Police Department only reaffirm the stories that we are hearing about how the classroom has become a carceral space for black students.
In the 2006-2007 school year, police officers documented 683 incidents of contact with students. Of these 683 cases, 559 of them, or 87.6% percent, were involving black students and 249 of those cases, or 39% of those cases involved black female students.Young black women are disproportionately having contact with school police officers for vague disciplinary infractions such as "Defiance" and "Disorderly
Conduct," and "Bullying," that to me seem to be deeply rooted in stereotypes about black women that describe them in terms (loud, sassy, etc.) that make them violators of "proper gender behavior," and thus, in need of management and/or policing. I bring up black female students, because black females have sort of become secondary to discussions about the prison industurial complex and the classroom to prison pipeline. To quote Andrea Smith:
"There's a tendency in our decolonization movements, our racial justice struggles to see gendered justice as kind of an add on. Like, once we get liberated we'll deal with this issue. And we fail to see that it is percisely through a logic of sexual violence that colonialism and white supremacy work."
I don't know what type of forum exists to address these issues with Unit 4 schools but anyone who is interested in talking about this more, or has personal experiences that they would like to share, please contact me (Treva Ellison) at trevaellison@gmail.com.
Peace,
How many criminal cases?
Great work on finding this out, and I wonder,
was there record of how many criminal cases were filed with the state's attorney's office, how many expulsions and suspensions were generated by the SRO and what the racial demographics were?
I suspect that the SRO officers are creating criminal records as well as tracking the youth in general. What used to be situations that could be resolved in-school, are now being handed to the state where another mess-up later can be interpreted as "Your Honor, this defendant has a long history of breaking the law- here's their school record."
The promise that school "misbehavior" won't create a record, adjudications being a temporary spot, and adult diversion being a "break", is actually law enforcement tracking, law enforcement creating records, and ultimately creating the records needed before a judge to justify sending young african americans to the prisons.
That the public was duped into allowing the Nanny Government into our schools so it can "keep the white kids safe" and "root out the bad apples" is another way to absolve our responsibilities and represents adults being afraid of children. Yes, dangerous behavior is not good. But is the SRO really addressing actual dangerous behavior, or are they there to create records on kids for later use?
Nanny Government?
Last time I checked the public schools were pretty close to the definition of "Nanny Government". Attendance is mandatory and the rights of students are severely curtailed as the schools act "in loco parentis" (in the place of parents, with similar authority). Putting someone with a badge in the hallway doesn't change anything. A school principal has significantly more power over a student than do the police, since the police can only enforce actual laws while the school can tell you what not to say, write, and wear almost on a whim.
Disproportionate?
If, as I assume, roughly half of black students are female, and only 45% of contacts with black students are with females, are you saying that is disproportionate in terms of gender?
Perhaps the officers should be praised for disregarding the stereotype that boys are troublemakers and girls are angels.
To give the 88% black contacts a baseline, do you know the fraction of black students in the schools where the officers were deployed? If the officers spent most of their time in mostly-black schools then you would expect most contacts to be with black students.
Your Lame Argument Shot Down
It's true that Champaign Schools have significant issues of racial disparity. However, none of them is even close to 88% black. The stats are here, but I don't think you really care much about facts and outcomes:
http://www.champaignschools.org/index2.php?header=./&file=Districtreportcard/districtreportcard
And the answer is...
Thanks for the link. The answer is that the district is 48% white, 37% black, 9% asian, and 6% hispanic. If you work out the numbers assuming contacts are random then a black student is 12x as likely as a non-back student to have a contact on any given day.
But contacts aren't random. I'm guessing 90% of kids either never attract attention or get yelled at once and become more cautious in their behavior, while a small number get in trouble repeatedly.
Let's take two students who randomly get in trouble for whatever youthful exuberance. Student A believes that he was punished for his behavior, which is under his control, so he modifies his behavior to either appease or avoid authority and stays out of trouble. Student B believes that he was punished because of his race, which he cannot control, so he changes nothing and keeps getting in trouble. Since people tend to seek confirming evidence for their beliefs, student B considers each incident more evidence that he has no control over his fate.
There is no need to assume bias on the part of the authority. The idea of bias on the part of the authority simply has to be credible to the student to produce the effect.
If I'm wrong and black students are actually held to a higher standard of behavior, then you would expect them to adhere to those higher standards unless there was some other influence, such as a strong peer group, that punished compliance with school authority. Of course, that same peer group might punish compliance in a bias-free environment as well.
"Student B believes that he
"Student B believes that he was punished because of his race, which he cannot control, so he changes nothing and keeps getting in trouble. Since people tend to seek confirming evidence for their beliefs, student B considers each incident more evidence that he has no control over his fate.
There is no need to assume bias on the part of the authority. "
Wow, Warrior, do you always dress in a white robe with a pointy hood? Or is it just coincidental that your thinking is controlled by stereotypes that you "cannot control"?
It's about perception
The SRO reacts to black students' behavior 12 X greater than any other kind of student. Officer discretion is what's happening- not black kids are acting up that much more. Again, the detail is necessary- how many criminal cases are generated, how many expulsions and suspensions are generated from these contacts are needed to assess how it may be that school officials are reacting more harshly to behavior committed by black students than other students.
What we can't accept is that somehow black students have a culture of resisting the "compliance with school authority." that Warrior loves so much- white students, of which I was one in the Unit 4 school district, cut up and mess up equal to rates as blacks, if not more, since we fell below the radar screen of the deans and cops.
And if we were caught, so what, we were given a pass since we were considered, "college tracked".
It's the perception of the SRO officer and white school teachers who call in the law when its behavior by a black student. Period.
What we aren't discussing is the effects of what we are really teaching our kids at school by having an armed police officer in the school: you will be arrested when you don't follow every little rule, whether the rules are good or bad. There is little respect for kids, their lives, their troubles- only the use of law and force to rule the day. Not a very good message in my opinion.
Education is a carrot. Inspiring kids to excercise their gifts for the benefit of themselves and others is the goal, not "comply with authority or else". Criminalizing kids early and often shuts them out, discourages them to become something and with contact rates like Unit 4's, the message is clear: "black kids ain't welcome here".
If the school were really interested in meeting kids where they are at, they would hire black teachers who are versed in the history of poverty, history of hip hop, history of media, history of citizen empowerment movements to reach these kids.
A white english teacher demanding silence and sitting still in a chair won't reach today's youth.
The achievement gap is partly the responsibility of the faculty. They have abdicated their authority in favor of fear and stereotypes- and handed these kids to the state prisons. Thanks for the crime and tax liability, Unit 4.