Data is base for reforms in school policing
A court-appointed commission's deep look into police on local school campuses raises serious questions about racial equity and how we can better provide safety and security in our public high schools.
The Marin County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission's report reviewed records of police contacts with students between 2017-18 and 2019-20 and found that minority students were arrested and ticketed at rates higher than their proportionate share of the schools' population.
The report dovetails into recent complaints about having police departments assign school resource officers to local campuses.
Public outcry over police murders of Black residents across the country turned up the volume on local criticism of having officers on campus. This response led to reforms in those security programs in the San Rafael City Schools District and the Novato Unified School District.
In San Rafael, the SRO program was replaced by a restorative justice program that so far has reduced arrests and citations of minority students, said Don Carney, the commission's spokesperson.
The goal of the commission's work was to “get at the truth of police-student interactions at county schools.”
Commission member and San Rafael police Lt. Scott Eberle was part of the team that gathered and compiled the statistics.
In several cases, minority students were cited or arrested by police at rates 20% greater than their proportion of the schools' enrollment.
For instance, at Davidson Middle School, students of color comprise around 75% of the San Rafael campus' enrollment, but 95% of the students who were arrested and cited by campus police.
Students of color make up about 50% of Novato High School's enrollment, but the commission's statistics show that 72% percent of the arrests and citations involved minority students.
In response to this pattern, the commission is recommending that school resource officers be replaced by “law enforcement school liaisons” who would only be called upon for serious crimes.
Other incidents should be handled by school security and counselors and the formation of campus restorative justice programs aimed at diversion and reconciliation.
As Carney told the IJ, “Schools should call in law enforcement for the same reasons that any person would call law enforcement — to respond to serious crimes.”
While local police departments have supported the SRO program as a way to increase campus security and build positive relations between youth and teens, there have been complaints that schools asked officers to handle incidents better suited to being handled by campus staff and supportive services that hold students accountable without involving police.
Building a report and recommendations based on facts is the foundation needed to build necessary change and reforms — better ways of providing safety and security on campuses and help lead students away from trouble.