Atlanta, GA
“A report released this morning examines the rise of school-based police officers, their latitude in deciding whether to send students to the principal’s office or juvenile court and the consequences to girls of color.
Today, police officers — known as school resource officers or SROs — are common in public schools. Nationwide, there are more than 19,000 officers in schools, up from about 100 in the 1970s, according to the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute new report, which notes, “Although the purpose of these officers is to maintain safety and address criminal acts, an important unintended consequence is greater arrest rates and referrals in schools who retain them, with especially harsh results for girls of color. ”
The report, “Be Her Resource: A Toolkit about School Resource Officers and Girls of Color,” builds on a report earlier this year from Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality that found black girls are regarded as older and less innocent than white counterparts, a bias that particularly affects girls between the ages of 5 and 14. Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, suggested this “adultification” contributed to the disparate discipline of black girls in schools and their harsher treatment in the juvenile justice system.”
[For more of this story by Maureen Downey, go to http://www.myajc.com/news/loca...bzbZwleWVxPVk2NJ6gN/]
Comments (0)