by Corey Vikser
Staff Writer
In the United States, excessive use of force by police has become a heated topic. Last month military rifles and armor were supplied to 10 different Texas schools, including but not limited to: M16s, M14s, automatic pistols and 15 military vehicles. This is one of the many disturbing developments in a trend of militarizing school campuses. Police policies enforced in schools support an unjust school-to-prison pipeline, targeting students for small infractions and tolerance for denial of constitutional rights.
A recent trend has been the militarization of school campuses across the country and enforcement of the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’ The school-to-prison pipeline is a controversial system in which students are moved into the criminal justice system from school due to police officers on campus charging students with a multitude of petty crimes. According to texasobserver.org in 2010, 300,000 Class C misdemeanors were distributed to children as young as 6 in Texas alone. The majority of charges given to students were for disrupting class, cursing and offenses usually seen on a list of classroom rules. This trend enforces fear and submission from students, by turning situations that should be settled with student and teacher meetings into criminal offenses.
An example in the South Bay is the ‘Party Patrol,’ a unit of local police officers that specifically search for and target house parties and trick fearful teens into letting them into homes where they gather up people and write lines of tickets ranging from possession of alcohol to things as minor as cigarette lighters. According to Easy Reader, on as little as one party sweep officers can distribute more than 9 citations to teens. By constantly targeting local population, the police force distances itself from the intent of serving the people to being enemies of them. If it is seen as normal to be fearful and wary of forces in your own community, it signifies tolerance of a police state.
The lack of legal knowledge from teens has given officers the unfair advantage of manipulating them into sacrificing their rights during illegal search-and-seizures. Recently Mira Costa students have voiced complaints about being detained by officers and illegally had their possessions searched for paraphernalia while simply walking home at night. This act is a direct violation of basic constitutional rights, and if students do not get clearer education on the rights they are entitled to then it leaves them vulnerable to submission to police in the form of testimony and search. Sites like flexyourrights.org and policecrimes.com are easily accessible and provide sufficent rights information along with methods for how to subvert unfair targeting by police.
Common justifications for rights violations by the police include ‘keeping the streets safe,’ and ‘if you have nothing to hide then you should let us search you.’ According to the law, probable cause is defined by an officer being more than certain a crime has occured and believes to find illegal contraband in the form of stolen goods or evidence. Walking home past curfew is NOT a justified cause to believe one has committed a crime, and many are unaware that if illegals are found on them during an illegal search-and-seizure the charges can be overturned in a court.
The over-militarization of police and pipelining of officers on school campuses is a disturbing trend that reinforces a poor system of targeting citizens for low level infractions and indicting them into prison. The police should be a welcomed, not feared presence in any circumstance however in recent light have shown a neglect of duty in certain instances as they deny citizen rights and work situations to their own benefit.
In addition, students should be encouraged and properly educated on their rights to avoid getting involved in police affairs that should not concern them in the first place. In this day and age, education on your rights and the police are more than necessary to protect yourself.
Leave a Reply