A national coalition of groups dedicated to ending the school-to-prison pipeline wants all law enforcement officers out of schools for good.
The Dignity in Schools Campaign released a new policy platformtoday that says officers should not be a regular presence in schools and emphasizes the need for trained staff such as behavior interventionists and restorative justice coordinators to promote safe and healthy schools.
When law enforcement must respond to an incident at a school, schools and police departments should have agreements that stress the importance of limited intervention and safeguards for students’ rights to education, counsel and due process, according to the new policy.
Dignity in Schools, which includes more than 100 groups from 27 states, long has advocated for limiting the role of law enforcement in schools but said more drastic action is now needed to protect students.
“Over time, we have seen that even with restricted roles and more training, police in schools can still criminalize students and their families. Recent recorded incidents of violence against students by police in schools have made clear the dire consequences of their continued presence in the school environment,” the campaign said in a resource guide that accompanied the policy platform.
The number of officers in schools has grown in recent decades. In 1999, 54 percent of students reported a security guard or police officer was present at school, a figure that grew to 70 percent in 2013, according to federal data.
[For more of this story, written by Sarah Barr, go to http://jjie.org/national-campa...ent-officers/314489/]
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