The US schools with their own police

[salvorhardin]

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

"We've taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal," said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer who represented Sarah Bustamantes. "They're kids. Disruption of class? Every time I look at this law I think: good lord, I never would have made it in school in the US. I grew up in Australia and it's just rowdy there. I don't know how these kids do it, how they go to school every day without breaking these laws."

Full report (about ~3,500 words): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools/print

[WingDinger]

1. I graduated in 78. Our school cop served booze, and trolled for BOYS.

Never set foot in the loadie corner.

[The Genealogist]

2. My high school had only a "security guard"

I was in high school from 1988-1992. I think about 1991, the school security guard position went to a man who had been in corrections, and apparently he had served as an executioner once in Kansas. This scared me, and kept me wondering "Why would the school hire someone like that as a security guard?" It seemed like an authoritarian thing to do. A lot of the students were wary of him and why someone like that was at the school. In retrospect, he was probably just a retired cop of a specific type who wanted to augment his retirement a bit. But actual cops in school, being called on to arrest students and charge them with crimes and put them into a legal system for spraying perfume on oneself or throwing paper airplanes? Suddenly, having a something so innocuous as a security guard, who incidentally wore a sports jacket and slacks to do his job and spent a big chunk of his day in the parking lot looking for excuses to ticket cars, seems rather kindly.

[KansDem]

3. It generates revenue for Texas

If you can issue a citation, the perp then needs to pay a fine and court costs. And if the kid is shipped off to a detention center, the privateers get a cut as well.

It's all about generating revenue for states who refuse to raise taxes...