What is the role of police in schools? What should it be? A video went viral when a sheriff’s deputy was shown throwing and dragging a student across the floor.
The problem has grown worse since the 1980’s when the country started to put more police officers in schools. What used to simply be an educational problem has become a law enforcement problem. So the media now shows an 8-year-old student in handcuffs about to be arrested. The 8-year-old was found to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. These incidents used to be dealt with by the principal. Research shows that these police-driven policies have not made schools safer. But they do make students more likely to drop out. And they do disproportionately affect minority and disabled children. Federal data show that children with disabilities represent 12 percent of the student population but 25 percent of children who get one or more out-of-school suspensions and 23 percent who are subject to arrest for school-related misbehavior.
School districts need to hire psychologists to deal with disruptive students.When schools and districts say that this is an added expense. It is less expensive than law suits which arise when these students are handcuffed, arrested and abused.