Hard Time Out
NEWS: Five-year-olds in handcuffs, eighth-graders detained for doodling: The prison boom comes to the schools.
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In March 2007, the eighth-grade class at Dyker Heights school in Brooklyn, New York, got a substitute teacher. Predictably, the kids got rambunctious. Thirteen-year-old Chelsea Fraser steered clear of the rowdier action, including the boys plastering the walls with post-office stickers. Instead she doodled on a desk with a marker, penning in block letters: "okay."
Two days later, Chelsea called her mom, Diana Silva, from school. She was panicked. "Mom," she said, "I think I'm gonna get arrested."
"For writing on a desk?" Silva laughed, suspecting teenage drama. "Did you write a bad word?"
"No," said Chelsea, a cheerful girl with a flip of black hair over one eye. "I wrote 'okay.'"
"Baby, tell them what you did," counseled Silva, a freelance graphic artist. "You'll probably go to the principal. They might suspend you, and they will probably make you scrub the desk." Silva doubted it would even go that far: Chelsea had been president of her class and captain of the volleyball team, and had never even been to the principal's office.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was a school dean saying Silva had better come in. "The children are being arrested," said the dean, explaining that the boys who had been stickering the walls were also headed to the police station.
Silva raced to school, and four police officers soon arrived. They handcuffed Chelsea and the boys and marched them out to a police van. As she walked, Chelsea looked up to see her classmates pressed against the windows. Her teacher was crying.
Silva tried to reason with the officers, who told her that writing on furniture was a crime. "Is it a crime to be a kid?" she shot back.
At the precinct, Chelsea was handcuffed to a pole over her head for three hours—while she was interrogated, her mother had to wait in another room. "I was scared, I was sad, and I was embarrassed," Chelsea told me. "I just wanted it to be over."
BATTLE OF THE BANNED
WHAT DID—AND DIDN'T—GET PAST TEXAS PRISON MAILROOM CENSORS LAST YEAR
Banned: United States: An Illustrated History (racial content)
Approved: The Hitler We Loved and Why
Banned: Electrician's Exam Study Guide (security concerns)
Approved: Viet Cong and nva Tunnels and Fortifications of the Vietnam War
Banned: Wilderness Survival (could be used to facilitate an escape)
Approved: The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
Banned: Good Housekeeping, August 2007 (criminal schemes)
Approved: Mafia Fix
Banned: Texas Hill Country, Spring/Summer 2007 (map)
Approved: Texas Travel Guide 2007
Banned: Spiritual Tattoo (sexually explicit images, tattoo making)
Approved: The Tattoo History Source Book
Banned: The Administratrix (female homosexuality)
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Banned: Mother Jones, Sept/Oct 2007 (nude child...in a story on mining dangers)
Approved: Letters to Penthouse XXVIII
Chelsea Fraser's case is extreme, but in schools across the nation, disciplinary infractions are increasingly being turned over to police and prosecutors. The Denver public schools, for example, saw a 71 percent rise in the number of students referred to law enforcement between 2000 and 2004, most for behavior such as bullying and using obscenities. In Florida during the 2005-06 school year, more than one-quarter of some 25,000 school-related referrals to the Department of Juvenile Justice were for disorderly conduct and trespassing. In the Chicago public schools, more than 8,000 students were arrested in 2003, almost half for simple assaults or batteries that involved no serious injuries or weapons. A full 77 percent of the arrests were of black students, although they make up just half of Chicago's student body.
School violence is a real concern, but in many places, this fear has motivated rigid "zero tolerance" policies that target minor infractions as gateway offenses—and that often disproportionately affect students of color: Black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
In 2006, Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African American girl from Paris, Texas, was sentenced to seven years in prison for shoving a teacher's aide. The aide, who was not hurt, was preventing Cotton from entering the building before the beginning of the school day. Cotton had no criminal record; she ended up serving a full year. Critics noted that the judge who sentenced her had previously let a 14-year-old white girl, charged with setting fire to her parents' house, go with probation only.
One reason why students are increasingly ending up in jail is that police now patrol the halls in many schools. In New York, the police department took control of school safety in 1998 under the Giuliani administration; by the 2005-06 school year, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city employed 4,625 school safety agents and at least 200 armed officers, making the nypd School Safety Division the 10th-biggest police force in the country—larger than those of Washington, DC, Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas. "We are treating the kids like potential criminals," says Donna Lieberman of the nyclu. In January, a five-year-old named Denis Rivera was handcuffed behind his back by an nypd school safety officer for throwing a tantrum in his kindergarten class in Queens.
Chelsea Fraser, for her part, missed three school days going to court, served another two days of in-school suspension, and had to pay $45 in restitution for the desk. She agreed to talk because "I want to help everybody else who is getting in trouble."
PREVIOUS: The Age of Incarceration
David Goodman is a contributing writer for Mother Jones.
I have 3 kids in public high school. From what i am told by the children and MANY or their friends, the minority kids do not have a sense of right and wrong. They don't thnk that ANY of the rules apply to them. And god forbid you point out that they are not conforming, and BANG they start crying RACIST..!!! They are loud and obnoxious and seem to have a REAL problem with authority.
The girl in the story was DESTROYING public property, that YOU & I paid for... WHe should have been arrested, and her mom should have been held liable for the cost to replace the desk... If her mom had been any kind of parent, she should have taught her daughter that she CAN NOT destroy things and get away with it.
Like i said, it seems that some segments of society do NOT think that the rules apply to them.
Bill
A MUCH more appropriate response would've been after-school detention where she had to clean off the writing and a call to the parents.
Jail is an incredibly harsh and unnecessary punishment for such a minor infraction.
You make it sound like the writing on the desk was the mother's fault. The child was thirteen. She made a mistake.
The mother wasn't negligent. She gave her child advice and encouraged her to take responsibility for her actions. Her mother must've been doing something right because her child had a spotless discipline record, was class president, and captain of her volleyball team. APPARENTLY YOU MISSED THAT PART.
As for you saying "the minority kids" have no sense of "right and wrong"--it isn't anything we haven't heard before from people like you who justify extreme punitive measures. Yes, there are some children who need more discipline, but asserting that an overwhelming amount of students who eschew the rules are students of color is nonsense. Discipline is a problem for children of many races.
Don't try to say that more students of color behave poorly without recognizing the incredibly egregious and biased responses to that behavior.
"In 2006, Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African American girl from Paris, Texas, was sentenced to seven years in prison for shoving a teacher's aide. The aide, who was not hurt, was preventing Cotton from entering the building before the beginning of the school day. Cotton had no criminal record; she ended up serving a full year. Critics noted that the judge who sentenced her had previously let a 14-year-old white girl, charged with setting fire to her parents' house, go with probation only. "
That isn't "crying racism" after not "conforming." Lets call it what it is: RACISM. Why would a child get sentenced to 7 years in prison for pushing someone aside when they didn't hurt them and when they were being obstructed from entering the school building in the first place? She isn't an innocent bystander, but she also isn't a criminal.
Arson, however isn't a serious enough crime for jail by this same judge's standards. Especially when the arson we're dealing with is a young white girl.
Wow, Bill. These young majority white girls seem to think they can get away with anything like burning houses down! Maybe her majority parents should have raised her better! Or is this case somehow less serious because private property--not a tax payer funded school desk--was damaged?
WE ARE RESPONDING TO SITUATIONS OF RELATIVELY MINOR SIGNIFICANCE WITH ARRESTS AND PRISON SENTENCING. This is all in the context of our already filled to the brink, incredibly expensive prisons and the astronomic percent of our adult population incarcerated. That's the point of this article and if you missed that, you need to read it again and realize the seriousness of what it is highlighting.
She didn't doodle a swear word, she didn't doodle any obscenities what-so-ever. She didn't harm anyone. She didn't even disrupt the class! It wasn't like she was dismantling the desk, or smashing it with a baseball bat; she was doodling, for Christ's sake! Not destroying, preventing it from being used again, or making it so the school had to purchase a new one.
Do you think she should have been arrested for sticking gum underneath the desk? Because that seems for destructive than a little doodle!
Also, lumping all "minority kids" into one category and saying they all don't have a sense right and wrong makes you look like a bigot. Sure, there are plenty of "minority kids" who weren't taught basic morals and social skills, but I could say that about a good majority of rich, priviledged WASPy brats.
Do you think its fair that the black 14 year old was sentenced to 7 years (serving 1) for shoving an aid, yet a white kids only gets probation for setting a freaking fire???
NOT!
My children tell me that if anyone is caught in local high school doing that, the police are called ON THE SPOT, the kid is handcuffed and the parents are made to PAY for MY tax dollars that the kid destroyed...!!!
Untill many segments of society realize that the rebelious behavior is NOT accepted, and WILL be punished, that segmant will continue to fail...!!!
Bill
It is strange that you have such penis envy, GOD you must have a small one..!! HHAHAAH...
Sorry that you can't handle the truth, but untill certian segments of society get in line and follow the rules that our society has established, then we will be needing cops in the schools. My childrens high school has 2 on cammpus full time, and ANY missbehavior is dealt with quick and harsh...!! I know that many progressives wish for anarchy in public schools, but society has decided, bad kids are being dealt with quickly, so as not to infect the good kids..:-)
Last year when about 12 kids tried to start a small time riot on campus, the cops sprayed the ENTIRE group with pepper spray. The parents came to school thinking taht they were going to sue someone, but instead they were given summons to report with teh kids to COURT... and all were dealt with...
Bill
In california every school has at least 1 cop (with gun) on each campus for middle school & high school. Maybe you would have done the other students in class a favor if you would have ejected and recomended for expulsion, the disruptive students..? My kids tell me that they have had a couple of teachers like you in the past, letting miscreants run free, disrupting class to no end.
Untill you get the rotten fruit out of the barrel, it will contaminate the whole lot..huh? When the bad kids know what will happen to them, mabye they will come in line..?
Bill
It is strange that you have such penis envy, GOD you must have a small one..!! HHAHAAH..." - Bill Nigh
Judging that comment from a "father of three" your children must be really [deleted]ty.
I think peer pressure has a lot to do with things...what does anybody else feel besides unconstructive comments concerning penis sizes? Many schools and states have discussed year round school or longer school years, once again, other cultures are in school from 7 am to 9 pm to get ahead...if the US is surpassed, it won't be a surprise if you know the facts...no other culture is more genetically gifted, it is all about work ethic......but I digress.....
Besides, I always thought it was the motion of the ocean, or the quality, not quantity? of course, mine I have to tie around my waist so it doesn't get in the way....
As long as you don't need tweezers and pepper to make it sneeze and then grab it with tweezers....that is from elementary school.....
I think some posters here are also the ones who get in fights at their kids games, it is a wonder you all haven't already been arrested; it is amazing how the power to blog and express one's beliefs (even when immature) makes everyone so macho.....
I spent a long Detention for having stickers on my hall locker. Then I had to clean it up with the vice principle breathing down my neck.
Should I have had a police record instead? How innocent were you back in high school, Bill?
My opinion is - punishment must fit the "crime" committed.
I am a student in a small high school, but it is true, the situation is way out of hand. We are wasting more tax money arresting students then school supplies. we have almost no paper, very outdated computers/software, books much older than i am about currently evolving subjects, and the teachers are not even allowed to hold a contract. The desks are not any more un-usable weather or not there is writing on it or not. sure i disagree with many of the statements and vulgarities portrayed on desks and property, but just cover it up with something and it is gone. All the money we could have spent improving our current resources and renewing our expendable ones, has been spent on school "rent-a-cops", and ID tags. The tags do not even do anything because we are small enough that every one knows each other.
As for the "minority" kids, as they seem to be called by some members, are not all bad, some (most) of the white kids are worse, but because of the portrayal via the media, it only seems worse. Because of this portrayal, and the blatant racism that we see every day (but no one will admit it because they wish to deny its existence in this day and age), it not only sucks if you are a minority because you are going to be jailed more easily, but it sucks to be white because you have to live with the fact that no one else other than white people will want to befriend you (also the guilt).
In my school a black student i knew was jailed for 10 years for selling pot, while a white kid was placed under 7 year house arrest for selling date-rape drugs.
Any one who is not even in the school system should think a little harder before they post anything. I am a lead brass player of the band, president of 7 after school clubs/activities, an honor/AP student, and yet, when a soda can accidentally fell out of my bag, one of the police officers came at me with his club drawn saying that i had better pick up that can or i would face "severe consequences."
I know that if a black student or other raced student had done it, they would have been faced with more harassment. Our school used to be very racially friendly before this happened, now every one is in groups of "their own kind." I feel as if this has only further instated racism.
It also seems as if many of the "adults" today have such a bad way of handling things that we, the youth, do not even have to question why the world is in its current state. it is true that this does not apply to every one, but by the sounds of things, it is a vast majority. It also seems pathetic how blind the current adult population tends to fight for their right to blindness on a global level, making our world one large hell-heap.
enough of that though, I doubt any one will take me seriously just because i mention that I am a high school student, but remember that these problems are affecting myself and others like me, not you.
only your tax money is affected, because like I said, while you may not be paying part of a collected $75 for a new desk, you are instead paying part of 10 different rent-a-cops yearly salaries, and the price for the schools new laminating ID machine + resources.
Any idea what the rest of your school students feel about police?
At Thornridge and Thornwood, it was different. The student bodies were 50 and 75% black, respectively. On one particular busride I watched 7 black students attack one white student. A large proportion of the black students were in remedial-classes and detentions. My possesions (backpacks, bikes, walkman's, etc...) were absconded with to such a point, that the only thing I brought to school was my books, paper and writing utensils. I don't know if it was black students that stole my belongings each time, but one occasion I happended to catch someone in the proces of stealing my Backpack in the school library. He was black. A large majority of the black students did not care about anything academic. Moreover, I personally witnessed drug transactions going on. More often than not, It was a black male selling cocaine or marijauna in school. I SAW THIS!!!!!!!!!
My senior year I went back to H-F, thankfully and gratefully. I have always been afraid to tell anyone these observations and memories for fear of rascist accusations. I no longer care what a bunch of hypocrites who have "white-guilt" think about true observations. If rascism is reccounting real events in an unadultered fashion, than I guess I'm rascist.
Another real life experience, I have an ex-girlfriend who is a social worker. Most of the single-parent, teen-age pregnant without a father girls are black. Most of the kids she councils and the most violent ones, are black. She works with high school children. I am also a substitute teacher. I teach in rural Southern Illinois. Not alot of black children. But from grades K-12, the most problematic children and teenagers I have instructed have almost all been black. The problems range from talking out of turn, to not completing assignments to threatening other students. These are real life observations. Not a condemnation of all black people. I think the United States makes a grave injustice towards our people as a whole when we choose to ignore something that is occurring because it's a sensitive subject. This means there is a problem in the black community, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
You are also right when you make an observation that upper-class white kids can get away with more infractions because of their parents will bail them out with finance or prestige.
Bill, if you would drop the fear and hatred, you'd be more effective. You're not all wrong.
Dave, you cite a few individual cases, and then demonstrate that you assume that all black people are represented by them.
Have you ever considered how it must have been for a black kid in your school trying to get his education, and having to deal not only with the assumptions people make about him because he shares skin color with a coke dealer, but also the violence from the black bad apples who are pissed at him for not conforming (because they, too, judge him based on his skin color)?
I share skin color with those that commit corporate theft, insider trading, fraud, police brutality, political corruption. I share blood with lobbyists, lawyers who will take money to free a man who raped and murdered his daughter, men who entered the priesthood and molest children, war profiteers, drug smugglers.
Hell, I share physical traits with the current Pope, who was part of the board that decided to protect the Catholic Church by protecting the child molestors in its ranks, who lives in a palace built on lies and theft and murder and has the freaking gall to pretend to be the moral authority for the world.
But I am not them.
Many Catholic priests have been brought to justice and the Catholic Church (At least financially) has been held accountable because people noticed there was a problem that was intristict within the Church.
Enron and other companies have been held accountable because people stood up and said "the Emperor has no clothes!"
I agree with the statement that most corporate crimes are committed by white people.
There is a cultural imperative that predestinates numerous individuals in a group to commit certain acts, whether positive or negative, but we shouldn't bring it up because it's sensitive and it makes certain people get a bad feeling in their tummies.
where 'rule of Law' has nothing to do with compassion, context or even HUMANITY.
Imagine how much fun you're gonna have when BIOMETRICS CATALOGUING, RFID tagging & your every financial & social contact has been catalogued to prevent ANY DEVIATION FROM THE CORPORATIZED MODEL of societal acceptability.
WHY ARE OUR COMMUNITY PEACE OFFICERS becoming THUGS with BADGES & no SOCIAL SKILLS?
because WE LET THEM & never HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE for their 'might makes right' mentality.
WHY? because they're more interested in privatization, cool tools, hanging out at crime scenes with their buddies, slapping down 'uppity' peace protesters, their HR dockets & overtime pay.
YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELVES when you let 'terruhristz' become everyone that falls under the description of 'anybody who doesn't DROP TO THEIR KNEES IN COMPLIANCE.
Welcome to the Corporatized Brave New World.
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BlueBerry Pick'n
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" ... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice... " ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
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"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
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When did we stop trying, people?
And why?
JT