When Schools Are the Police 725
First time accepted submitter Is Any Nickname Left writes "The Washington Post has an article on school systems with their own police forces. It focuses on Texas, which has the highest number of 'School Police Departments,' of which there are so many they have their own trade association. Highlights: 1) Houston fourth-grader stood on a stool so he could see the judge. He pleaded guilty. To a scuffle on a school bus. 2) 275,000 juvenile tickets in fiscal 2009, to students as young as 5. 3) Austin middle school student ticketed after she sprayed herself with perfume when classmates said she smelled. 4) a 17-year-old was in court after he and his girlfriend poured milk on each other. 'She was mad at me because I broke up with her,' he said. I waiting for the Alamo Heights Special Airborne Brigade and SEAL TEAM CROCKETT."
obviously (Score:3, Interesting)
bag them while they are still young.
Police state? Hell, it's police kindergarten.
Texas Police Are Pretty Bad (Score:4, Interesting)
My then, 17yo kid (he literally just turned a week previous) DEFENDED himself against a 14yo, who started a fight. My child was arrested and charged as an adult. The child who started the fight was not charged and was given one week of in school suspension. My child is now classified as a violent offender. He's fucked until he's at least 25. In Texas is it now, literally, illegal to defend yourself.
Police and Judges in Texas constantly prove they are incapable of intelligence, compassion, or logical application of the law. Stupidity, good 'ol boy politics, and bridged judges is an everyday event. Some judges only hold court a couple days per yet. Ya, things are that corrupt here.
so having a can of coke in class is disruptive? (Score:4, Interesting)
so having a can of coke in class is disruptive?
http://www.njjn.org/uploads/Miscellaneous/Juvenile%20Probation%20Letterhead-letterfor%20Police%20Chief.doc [njjn.org]
Re:Texas Police Are Pretty Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
In Texas is it now, literally, illegal to defend yourself.
It's Texas. He should have used a concealed handgun to defend himself - he'd probably be off scot-free.
Somewhere in the uncomfortable middle... (Score:5, Interesting)
It worries me because of things like the recent "Kids for Cash" [jlc.org] scam in Pennsylvania in which kids, unrepresented by lawyers, received huge out-of-state sentences for infractions that should have netted them a suspension or a week or two in jug. Two judges received millions in kickbacks. At least one kid took his own life. Who knows how many basically decent kids were introduced to lives of crime or otherwise psychologically damaged. In other words, I don't trust the governments that implement this kind of stuff.
On the other hand, we have parents assaulting teachers over a bad grade, big kids bringing in arsenals, little kids showing up with Daddy's (or Mommy's boyfriend's) handgun that they found under a sofa cushion, kindergarteners arriving with stashes of crack cocaine--the list is endless, and obviously teachers can't deal with these sorts of infractions. It's a huge problem, but I'm not sure police forces are the answer. Otherwise, all of the sudden every childish misbehavior is going to start looking like a major felony.
Cash for Kids (Score:5, Interesting)
Just this month, Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash.". http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/11/national/main20091371.shtml [cbsnews.com]
This can happen to your kids too! I am so sick of all of the "unique snowflake" crap from people on here saying the schools and state should be able to do whatever they want to my kids to get them "in line". We homeschool all of our kids, are extremely respectful to all of them and treat them with the same respect and dignity I want for myself. I will never send them off to be harassed by the state and turned into a tool for the elites or a cog in the wheel. They live their lives along with us in the "real world" and are charting their own course rather than the one defined by the government, political, religious and corporate sponsors of education.
Re:obviously (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Result of Truancy Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Spot on, I used to skive off on days when my mum was in London seeing her PHD tutor. She never knew until I told her a few years ago - she asked how I got away with it - and I told her I only did it when I knew I wouldn't miss anything important, or make it too obvious.
She now uses me as an example (she's a child psychologist) as how teenagers can make informed decisions even when they're misbehaving.
Re:Result of Truancy Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what highschool you went to, but in mine I was carrying the math and science grades of 12 (yes, I said TWELVE) other students, year round, for YEARS.
I suppose it was pure coincidence that I had straight A grades, and that they were always the same 12 students, and also were the A-team football lineup.
Pure coincidence, surely.
When I would enquire about this fact, teacher after teacher would tell me that there was nothing they could do about it, and totally circumnavigated the issue.
Strangely enough, in my junior year when I had decided that I had enough of their bullshit and chose to get straight Fs on purpose, it was less than a week before there was a parent teacher conference. (Unscheduled, mind.) The teaachers gave the whole song and dance about how I was not living up to my potential, and the whole usual shool administrator song and dance-- but refused to listen to my grievances. Something my folks both noticed.
Prior to this meeting, and as a direct result of my decision to fail spectacularly, I had managed to make pretty much the entire A-team uneligable to play, had ruined their chances for athletic scholarships, and had literally received death threats in the hall.
As a result of this insanity (and the literal breakdown of my psyche from fun loving kid to cruel cynic in such a short period that had my parents frightened) I was taken out of school, obliterated the GED test, and stomped the local university entrance exam.
I loved college.
My grade was my own, and nobody elses, and I got to see first hand what happens to pampered highschool jocks when they get thrust into doing their own damn work.
I am now an engineer, working in aviation.
Don't talk to me about being a jealous nerd. Betty Big-boobs with her pompoms and Andy the dumb-as-rocks athlete that can't write his own name have nothing I want. I am interested in neither, for any reason.
And no, I never liked the "pretty girls" in science class. I found them painfully and willfully ignorant, and as such loathsome. If they and the deadweight athletes hooked up, they deserve each other.
Just break from the union already (Score:2, Interesting)
There use to be a lot of news about the probability of Texas breaking from the union. My question: Why aren't we convincing them to do it!?
List of problems that will be solved:
1. Weed being illegal (Some guy in Texas is blocking it from even getting a formal debate because he has his hands in the cartel's pockets)
2. This article
3. Software patents
4. A large portion of "The Good Ol' Boy Network"
Re:obviously (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah.. There's actually video footage of teachers in kindergarten-2nd grade classes that have out-of-control kids doing physically violent or destructive things in their classroom; the teachers actually hold their arms out at a distance just so it's really clear that they're not touching the kid.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Re:Result of Truancy Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
In this case, the school was a big fan of "group participation" projects, designed specifically to carry dead weight.
An example:
14 students are assigned to a science fair project. Regardless of who actually does the work, the whole group gets the same grade. This leads to the situation where football boy does nothing, and gets an A, with an awesome project that he knows nothing about, and did nothing to contribute to.
Similar with some stretches for math, history class, etc.
The beef was not the group participation idea itself, the complaint was over the consistent assignment of the exact same 12 "partners" for every project, every year.