We’re living in the twenty-first century and still dueling over the basic premises of human society. The need to reevaluate our choices is greater than ever! The DC #police should not be involved in school oversight when the officers in service may be agitating the situation further instead of improving it.
Had the death of George Floyd taken place maybe even a decade earlier, higher authorities could easily brush it under the rug and the news wouldn't see the light of the day. In today’s climate however, the power of mainstream and social media does not allow the news of injustice such as this to go unnoticed. Hence its effect on the way so many practices are now being questioned at all levels of the government and public dominions.
Generation Z is much more sensitive and enlightened compared to the Millennial and older generations. The social and psychological effects of inequitable policing far exceeds the numbers that we previously witnessed in the news. Police officers are agents of protection, and the revelation that they are capable of perpetuating injustice injures the trust of the children and instills a lingering sense of fear among them. Now, subconsciously or not, they will grow up with a tendency to mistrust their law enforcement agencies, after being surrounded by violent stories from the media.
Traditional school systems around the world have managed their securities themselves. Why is it that the #schools in D.C need to give that power to the police departments and have them lingering around the schools at all times? In 2004 the legislation that approved handing over the school security to police departments was based on the notion that the problems in the District’s neighborhood were leading to increasing violence in the schools. The notion however completely disregards the brewing factors that led to the problems in the District’s neighborhood in the first place. Since when did violence become the right way to deal with violence? Aren’t neighborhood problems very much a product of the injustices and discriminatory attitudes faced by the residents of those neighborhoods? How will magnifying this false sense of security across the State, help to resolve the problem?
Critics have pointed out that the presence of police in schools leads to the arrest of more children, primarily Latinos and African Americans, for violation of those rules that can be easily handled by the school administration. According to the School Report Card of 2019, 100% of the arrests in schools in the previous academic year concerned children of color wherein 92% of the arrested students were Black and others were Latino. The impact of such arrests is not lost on the rest of the students, who witnessed their fellow students being arrested for everyday activities that happen in schools around the world.
The children of today need more protection on the inside than the outside. Here we are; still debating whether more money should go into payrolls of police officers who apply the law in an uneven manner if at all, instead of investing those funds in better counseling practices for students. We should focus on fostering more of those kinds of initiatives with far reaching results that nurture a more tolerant, compassionate, and emotionally stable generation.
