School officers across the state turned to heavy-handed tactics on children, often in response to minor misbehavior, our investigation shows.

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    I graduated a couple of years before police started getting put in schools where I grew up (yes, I’m old) and it still shocks me that parents are okay with it. I know people who have been pinned to the ground and assaulted by cops for fighting in school when a year or two before a teacher would have just grabbed them by the shirt and hauled them off each other. I understand that can be dangerous and a liability to teachers as well, but the solution absolutely isn’t cops.

    • Corvidae@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There’s a long tradition of physical violence towards kids in US culture. Spare the rod, spoil the child!

    • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      At least in my county the parents celebrate them one time they tazed a student that walked away from them. This was highly celebrated because as many said it put that little ni thug* in their place.

      I don’t have to tell you the student’s race and how that compared to the officer/county as a whole

    • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      The police officers stationed in schools as their dedicated post! This is a cool and normal thing and not at all a horrifying extension of the school to prison pipeline masquerading under the idea of protecting schoolchildren from gun violence because the USA can’t muster the political willpower to rein in guns nor to address the deep sociopolitical issues fucking us up.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Thanks.
        So normal police, just stationed at a school. Weird to call it school police if they are normal police officers.
        Calling it school police sounds like it’s police with special education for the purpose.
        Anyways I’m glad that the concept doesn’t exist and isn’t necessary in my country.

        This is a cool and normal thing and not at all a horrifying extension of the school to prison pipeline

        Yes indeed very cool 😎 🤣 🤣 🤣

          • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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            13 hours ago

            Just steps towards normalizing this in society. Give it another decade and the US will develop a policing branch just dedicated to school policing.

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                I agree it sounds less dystopian. but the reality of it apparently is not.
                Maybe one day USA can become a civilized country, so all this shit isn’t necessary.

        • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          So normal police, just stationed at a school. Weird to call it school police if they are normal police officers.

          It’s mostly to distinguish the officers assigned there as their daily job vs. a police officer being called in by dialing emergency services or the local police department directly.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Thanks, but If they are just normal police, I don’t really see what is really distinguished between. But the whole concept is completely alien to me, so what do I know?
            At least there are cool police walking among the school children with real weapons that can kill, so the children can feel extra safe. /s

            I understand that the brutality of some parts of American society is several levels removed from how it is here. But it also seems that in USA, the tendency is to make the problems worse, and very rarely to actually try to solve the problems.

            • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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              1 day ago

              The difference is that they’re stationed inside the school all day, every school day. They’re not there to respond to whatever emergency there is in the community, only to minor incidents inside the school, with the training to escalate violently.

                • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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                  1 day ago

                  Typo if you’re not understanding:

                  Escalating violently is what cops are trained to do. If you put a bunch of bored cops around students, who occasionally do dumb stuff, the cops will escalate violently some of the time.

    • tomi000@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      You dont have school police in your country? Whos gonna protect your children from the thousands of school shooters roaming around? The problem is they cant own guns yet to protect themselves. I say we should stop wasting money on police idling in schools and just be rational. Arm the kids!

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s excessive even in college. A few years after I graduated, they renamed “campus security” to “campus police” to support increased training, equipment and certifications. It also results in more heavy handed responses

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        campus security

        But campus security sounds like something completely different, security guards do not have the same legal authorizations police have.
        I have absolutely heard about school security, but never about school police.

        • Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au
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          1 day ago

          bigger campuses now have them licensed as police, and they are legal to execute police powers within the jurisdiction of the campus it is common.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Wow that’s insane!
            So they are NOT real police, but more like a private police force?
            I seem to be getting mixed messages here.

            • Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au
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              1 day ago

              if you are on campus property they have REAL police powers, so don’t just treat them as enhanced security guards. Lot’s of hospitals here have them now too

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                18 hours ago

                don’t just treat them as enhanced security guards.

                I would never dream of traveling to USA again, so no danger of that.

            • smh@slrpnk.net
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              1 day ago

              It probably depends on the college. At my college, they’re real police. I’ve taken training alongside them (for example, a class on responding to a mental health crisis), and trainings they’ve taught (ex: deescalation).

              The campus police want us to believe that they’re focused on keeping everyone safe while minimizing the students’ exposure to the legal system. They’re paid by the college and the college wants to retain students. They’ll send students to campus programs (counseling, primarily) instead of arresting them, that sort of thing. And there are problems on campus where you want some sort of security: walking back to your car at night after a creepy encounter with a patron, someone backs in to your car in the parking garage, someone overdosed in a bathroom.

              I do believe them that they’re less harsh than the city police, but that’s not saying much.