Putting oneself out of business is generally not sound career advice.
But that’s exactly what Kevin Bethel, the deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, said he hopes to do through the department’s school diversion program, which offers alternatives to arrest for students who commit low-level offenses such as fighting or marijuana possession.
Beginning in January, he will continue that work as the first Diana A. Millner Youth Justice Fellow at the Stoneleigh Foundation, an organization aimed at improving the lives of vulnerable youth.
“You can really turn your juvenile justice system around,” Bethel said in an interview. “It’s really been one of the most profound things I’ve done in my career.”
The program, in place at more than 200 Philadelphia schools since 2014, is an alternative to the zero tolerance approach to school safety that has resulted in more arrests but not a decrease in behavioral incidents. The one-strike policy has been shown to push students — especially black and Latino students — into the school-to-prison pipeline.
[For more of this story, written by Joe Guszkowski, go to http://jjie.org/philadelphia-n...r-fellowship/150510/]
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