School officers across the state turned to heavy-handed tactics on children, often in response to minor misbehavior, our investigation shows.
School officers across the state turned to heavy-handed tactics on children, often in response to minor misbehavior, our investigation shows.
36 Comments
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 69 pts · 118d
I graduated a couple of years before police started getting put in schools where I grew up (yes, I’m old) and it still shocks me that parents are okay with it. I know people who have been pinned to the ground and assaulted by cops for fighting in school when a year or two before a teacher would have just grabbed them by the shirt and hauled them off each other. I understand that can be dangerous and a liability to teachers as well, but the solution absolutely isn’t cops.
Corvidae@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 118d
There's a long tradition of physical violence towards kids in US culture. Spare the rod, spoil the child!
arrow74@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 118d
At least in my county the parents celebrate them one time they tazed a student that walked away from them. This was highly celebrated because as many said it put that little
nithug* in their place.I don't have to tell you the student's race and how that compared to the officer/county as a whole
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 118d
WTF is "school police?"
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 58 pts · 118d
The police officers stationed in schools as their dedicated post! This is a cool and normal thing and not at all a horrifying extension of the school to prison pipeline masquerading under the idea of protecting schoolchildren from gun violence because the USA can't muster the political willpower to rein in guns nor to address the deep sociopolitical issues fucking us up.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 118d
Thanks.
So normal police, just stationed at a school. Weird to call it school police if they are normal police officers.
Calling it school police sounds like it's police with special education for the purpose.
Anyways I'm glad that the concept doesn't exist and isn't necessary in my country.
Yes indeed very cool 😎 🤣 🤣 🤣
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 118d
I think most places call them School Resource Officers (SRO) or something similar.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 118d
My kids elementary school used something like “Community Resource Officer”
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 117d
Just steps towards normalizing this in society. Give it another decade and the US will develop a policing branch just dedicated to school policing.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 117d
Its long past normalized here. We had one in middle school and that was in the 90s
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 118d
But is it the same, in that it is in fact police officers stationed at a school?
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 118d
Yeah, it's the same thing. I think the goal with SRO was to sound less dystopian.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 118d
I agree it sounds less dystopian. but the reality of it apparently is not.
Maybe one day USA can become a civilized country, so all this shit isn't necessary.
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 118d
It's mostly to distinguish the officers assigned there as their daily job vs. a police officer being called in by dialing emergency services or the local police department directly.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 118d
Thanks, but If they are just normal police, I don't really see what is really distinguished between. But the whole concept is completely alien to me, so what do I know?
At least there are cool police walking among the school children with real weapons that can kill, so the children can feel extra safe. /s
I understand that the brutality of some parts of American society is several levels removed from how it is here. But it also seems that in USA, the tendency is to make the problems worse, and very rarely to actually try to solve the problems.
silence7@slrpnk.net · 0 pts · 118d
The difference is that they're stationed inside the school all day, every school day. They're not there to respond to whatever emergency there is in the community, only to minor incidents inside the school, with the training to escalate violently.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 118d
Is that a typo or a joke? 🤣
silence7@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 118d
Typo if you're not understanding:
Escalating violently is what cops are trained to do. If you put a bunch of bored cops around students, who occasionally do dumb stuff, the cops will escalate violently some of the time.
tomi000@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 118d
You dont have school police in your country? Whos gonna protect your children from the thousands of school shooters roaming around? The problem is they cant own guns yet to protect themselves. I say we should stop wasting money on police idling in schools and just be rational. Arm the kids!
SGGeorwell@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 117d
Another American thing.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 118d
It’s excessive even in college. A few years after I graduated, they renamed “campus security” to “campus police” to support increased training, equipment and certifications. It also results in more heavy handed responses
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 118d
But campus security sounds like something completely different, security guards do not have the same legal authorizations police have.
I have absolutely heard about school security, but never about school police.
Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au · 6 pts · 118d
bigger campuses now have them licensed as police, and they are legal to execute police powers within the jurisdiction of the campus it is common.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 118d
Wow that's insane!
So they are NOT real police, but more like a private police force?
I seem to be getting mixed messages here.
smh@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 118d
It probably depends on the college. At my college, they're real police. I've taken training alongside them (for example, a class on responding to a mental health crisis), and trainings they've taught (ex: deescalation).
The campus police want us to believe that they're focused on keeping everyone safe while minimizing the students' exposure to the legal system. They're paid by the college and the college wants to retain students. They'll send students to campus programs (counseling, primarily) instead of arresting them, that sort of thing. And there are problems on campus where you want some sort of security: walking back to your car at night after a creepy encounter with a patron, someone backs in to your car in the parking garage, someone overdosed in a bathroom.
I do believe them that they're less harsh than the city police, but that's not saying much.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 117d
Thanks for a very good explanation.
Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au · 2 pts · 118d
if you are on campus property they have REAL police powers, so don't just treat them as enhanced security guards. Lot's of hospitals here have them now too
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 117d
I would never dream of traveling to USA again, so no danger of that.
Tempus_Fugit@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 118d
No surprises coming out of that traitor state.
BonsaiBoo@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 118d
You gotta ask yourself - is our students learning?
Insekticus@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 118d
You gotta ask yourself - am our students learning?
FTFY. YW.
Whostosay@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 118d
God damn, the learning
bitteroldcoot@piefed.social · 3 pts · 118d
Well, terrorizing children does instill a certain kind of learning.
Also it gives them PTSD, but hey, it's Texas. Besides, I'm sure they are only doing it to the black and brown kids.
NoFearFrontier@feddit.org · 2 pts · 116d
So they will be the reason the next school shootings? ACAB
REDACTED@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 118d
Boys being boys amirite
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 113d
Look what you have to do when you take the cane away from the teachers.
Let us have the cane back, and I promise you I'll do everything in my power, to avoid having to have the cops taser my students. Why should it only be the cops who're allowed to have job satisfaction?
/s obviously, I've never used physical force on a student