April, 06 2021, 12:00am EDT
New Survey: 41% of Young People Reported Feeling Unsafe When They See Police in Schools
Survey of over 600 students across the country show students feel targeted by police, have regular, negative interactions with police and security, and overwhelmingly favor additional resources and support over more funding for police and security.
WASHINGTON
More than two thirds of students think police should be removed from schools; one in five students reported police verbally harass or make fun of young people in school; and, two out of every five young people surveyed felt unsafe seeing police in schools, according to a new survey released by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD). The new report Arrested Learning: A survey of youth experiences of police and security at school, outlines the results of a survey of over 600 students on their experiences, interactions, and feelings about police and security at school. The report shows that students often feel targeted by police; that they have seen sexual harassment by police; that they have regular, negative interactions with police and security; and that they overwhelmingly favor additional resources and supports (like mental health resources, more teachers, and dedicated youth programs to increase college access) over more funding for police and security.
The report is a result of a national survey from four community-based organizations in New York, New Jersey, Nevada and Oregon: Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC), Make the Road New Jersey (MRNJ), Make the Road Nevada (MRNV) and Latinos Unidos Siempre (LUS).
For more than three decades, Black and brown young people, parents, educators, and communities have organized to dismantle the school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline. As a core feature of that fight, young people have relentlessly called to remove police from schools. The results of this survey clearly reinforce what young people have already known to be true: police and security at school do not make them safe.
"The school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline is one of the most egregious examples of systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence in our country," said Kate Terenzi, Senior Policy and Campaign Strategist, Center for Popular Democracy. "For too long abusive policing has dominated school hallways and stifled students' education, funneling them into the criminal legal system. Students deserve more than an education system that is hell-bent on criminalizing them instead of providing them with the resources they need to succeed."
Additional findings include:
- Respondents have experienced a pattern of disturbing behavior in which school police.
- For example, one in five respondents reported police verbally harass or make fun of students (20.3% of respondents).
- In three out of four surveyed jurisdictions, young people experienced or knew someone who experienced sexual harassment at the hands of police at school.
- Police and security at schools do not make students feel safe, especially compared to other people they interact with at school, like teachers and friends.
- More than two thirds of students think police should be removed from schools.
- When asked what makes respondents feel safe (when physically attending school), 83.7% selected friends and 62.7% selected teachers, versus only 15.6% who selected police.
- 41% of young people surveyed feel "very unsafe" or "unsafe" when they see police at school.
- Black and Latinx respondents were more likely to be targeted at metal detectors than white respondents.
- 52.6% of respondents who described their schools as majority Black and 55.7% of those who described their schools as majority Black and Brown reported going through metal detectors daily or multiple times a day, compared to 10.8% of respondents who described their schools as majority white.
- In addition: 34.1% of Black respondents have had their belongings taken, compared to 14.5% of white respondents; 19.4% of Black respondents have been yelled at, compared to 7.9% of white respondents; 34.1% of Black respondents and 22.1% of Latinx respondents have been made to take off their shoes, versus 6.6% of white respondents.
- When asked what they would like to see more or better quality of at school, students overwhelmingly selected resources, programs, and supports--not police or security.
- For example, 78.4% of respondents answered dedicated youth-led programs to increase access to college and financial aid.
Whether in New York, New Jersey, Nevada, or Oregon, the data in Arrested Learning: A survey of youth experiences of police and security at school makes clear that the presence of police does not support students' learning and that young people across the country believe in police-free schools.
"To have police officers at school is a reminder that we must be on guard. Whenever I walk by an officer I hold my breath, take my hands out of my pocket, and try to stand up straight. I'm scared. Now I know half of the young people in our district probably feel the same way. We need police free schools," said Desiree Reyes, Youth Member, Make the Road Nevada. "Not only that, the police are regularly pepper spraying young people --an act that would be considered a war crime in other circumstances." In Clark County, NV more than a quarter of students surveyed have, or personally know someone who has, been pepper sprayed by school police.
"Seeing the statistics from our survey makes me feel disgusted and angry. These are the experiences of young children and teenagers across the country, yet it feels personal because they reflect how I feel. At school, police don't make me feel safe, Instead, they make me feel like I did something wrong. I feel scared that I could be hurt by the school police," said Corrine Blake, Youth Leader, Urban Youth Collaborative in New York "What did we do to deserve police in our schools? We deserve supports and resources, not police."
"Police free schools are just the beginning of dismantling a whole system of policing, which includes policies, attitudes and institutions that place students in the criminal justice system. When we divest funds that go into placing police officers in our schools, we have to reinvest those funds into the education of our young people most impacted by the school to prison and deportation pipeline," said a youth leader from Latinos Unidos Siempre in Salem, Oregon. "When we asked young people what they wanted to see more of in their schools, students ranked teachers and mental health support as their highest priorities. More than 90% of students want culturally responsive education."
CPD and youth organizers across the country are calling for the Biden administration, Congress, state and local officials to adopt the Youth Mandate for Education and Liberation. Endorsed by more than 150 organizations, the Youth Mandate demands that officials fund education, not incarceration, restore and strengthen young people's civil rights in education, uplift public education and end the private takeover of schools. The demands emanate from years of local fights to dismantle the school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline.
The Center for Popular Democracy works to create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy in partnership with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions. CPD strengthens our collective capacity to envision and win an innovative pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.
(347) 985-2220LATEST NEWS
Bernie Sanders Says Defeating Oligarchy Now Most Urgent Issue
"My friends, you don’t have to be a PhD in political science to understand that this is not democracy. This is not one person, one vote. This is not all of us coming together to decide our future. This is oligarchy."
Dec 14, 2024
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is escalating his fight against the U.S. oligarchy with a new campaign directed at the nation's wealthiest individuals—including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—who he says are key culprits in a global race to the bottom that is stripping people worldwide of political agency while impoverishing billions so that the rich can amass increasingly obscene levels of wealth.
Announcing a new series that will detail how "billionaire oligarchs" in the U.S. "manipulate the global economy, purchase our elections, avoid paying taxes, and increasingly control our government," Sanders said in a Friday night video address that it makes him laugh when mainstream pundits talk openly about the nefarious oligarchic structures in other places, but refuse to acknowledge the issue in domestic terms.
"Strangely enough, the term 'oligarchy' is very rarely used to describe what's happening in the United States or in fact, what's happening around the world," said Sanders. "But guess what? Oligarchy is a global phenomenon, and it is headquartered right here in the United States."
Bernie Sanders talks about the oligarchy
While rarely discussed in the corporate press or by most elected officials, argues Sanders, the reality is that a "small number of incredibly wealthy billionaires own and control much of the global economy. Period. End of discussion. And increasingly they own and control our government through a corrupt campaign finance system."
Since the the victory of President-elect Donald Trump in November, Sanders has been increasingly outspoken about his frustrations over the failure of the Democratic Party to adequately confront the contradictions presented by a party that purports to represent the interests of the working class yet remains so beholden to corporate interests and the wealthy that lavish it with campaign contributions.
In a missive to supporters last month, Sanders bemoaned how "just 150 billionaire families spent nearly $2 billion to get their candidates elected" in this year's elections, which included giving to both major political parties. Such a reality, he said, must be challenged.
As part of his new effort announced Friday, Sanders' office said the two-time Democratic presidential candidate would be hosting a series of discussions with the leading experts on various topics related to the form and function of U.S. oligarchy and expose the incoming Trump administration's "ties to the billionaire class," including their efforts to further erode democracy, gut regulations, enrich themselves, and undermine the common good.
"In my view," said Sanders, "this issue of oligarchy is the most important issue facing our country and world because it touches on everything else." He said the climate crisis, healthcare, worker protections, and the fight against poverty are all adversely effected by the power of the wealthy elites who control the economy and the political sphere.
"My friends, you don’t have to be a PhD in political science to understand that this is not democracy," he said. "This is not one person, one vote. This is not all of us coming together to decide our future. This is oligarchy."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Pardon of 'Kids-for-Cash' Judge Michael Conahan Sparks Outrage
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," said one of the disgraced judge's victims.
Dec 13, 2024
Victims of a scheme in which a pair of Pennsylvania judges conspired to funnel thousands of children into private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks expressed outrage following U.S. President Joe Biden's Thursday commutation of one of the men's sentences.
In 2010, former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after he and co-conspirator Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention facility and then took nearly $3 million in payments from the builder and co-owner of for-profit lockups, into which the judges sent children as young as 8 years old.
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," Amanda Lorah—who was sentenced by Conahan to five years of juvenile detention over a high school fight—toldWBRE.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
"This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer," Fonzo added. "Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."
Many of Conahan's victims were first-time or low-level offenders. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later throw out thousands of cases adjudicated by the Conahan and Ciaverella, the latter of whom is serving a 28-year sentence for his role in the scheme.
Conahan—who is 72 and had been under house arrest since being transferred from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic—was one of around 1,500 people who received commutations or pardons from Biden on Thursday. While the sweeping move was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, many also decried the president's decision to not grant clemency to any of the 40 men with federal death sentences.
Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
"So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing, and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened?" said Lorah. "So it's nothing for us, but it seems that Conahan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today."
"There's never going to be any closure for us," she added. "There's never going to be, somehow, some way, these two men are always going to pop up, but now, when you think about the president of the United States letting him get away with this, who even wants to live in this country at this point? I'm totally shocked, I can't believe this."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular