When School Feels Like Prison Melinda Anderson Summary

School security is one of the world’s biggest issues. In California not many schools have security for their schools and that raises many questions for parents and teachers. All parents want their children to be safe and they don’t want anything bad to happen to them. They don’t know what might happen to them when they go to school. Some schools don’t have security systems because they don’t have government support to afford security for their school. Parents think twice before sending their kids to school with no security because of the crime that’s been happening lately. Department of Education should know that when kids are at school it’s their responsibility to protect kids from any crime. The main problem is the crime that is happening

Racial disparities in school discipline have garnered recent attention in national reports issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Justice (U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Gregory, Hafen, Ruzek, Mikami, Allen, & Pianta, 2016). Suspension rates Black students are two to three times higher than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Various research has documented that Black students remain overrepresented in school discipline sanctions after accounting for their achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher- and self-reported behavior (Gregory et al, 2016). There is a difference as to the reasons why White students are sent to the office versus Black students. Black students are sent to the office for subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and “perceived threat”, while White students are more than likely to be referred for more objective reasons including, smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission. (Gregory, et al, 2016). African Americans and especially African American boys, are more likely to be disciplined and often receive more out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than white students (Todd Rudd, 2014). Suspending students is taking away time from them being in the classroom. Students who receive suspensions, lose instructional time, fall behind on course work, become discouraged, and ultimately drop out…recent research has shown each suspension a student receives can decrease their odds for high graduation by any

The lack of school surveillance plays a big role for school shootings. Author of the book Rampage: the Social Roots of School Shootings, Katherine Newman states that “Failures of surveillance systems that are intended to identify troubled teens before

In today's school system, there have been uproars about the student's privacy and safety at the schoolhouse. Some parents feel that their child's safety is more important because of the rules that the school has set forth to maintain a safe environment. Others feel that their child's privacy should be taken seriously because they should be treated more like an adult. In recent news, there has been concerns about the student's safety that cause some to get injured or killed; while, student's privacy has cause the police to get involved. The school system should be concerned as well as, aware about the student’s privacy and safety at their prospective school.

America is the land of opportunities and the land of freedom, where people can carry guns and received free options like free education; Everyone can criticize anything including the government and get away with it. In the article “The School-to-Prison Pipeline” by Los Angeles journalist Marilyn Elias, she elaborates how racial minorities and children with disabilities were disproportionately represented in the school-to-prison pipeline. Elias suggest that teachers were harsher with Minorities and children with disabilities and these children were disproportionately suspended and expelled which increases the likelihood to be a drop out and wind up behind bars. It was mentioned that police on campus has helped to criminalized many students and

The school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies have been implemented in schools in the last 20 years that include inserting school resource officers in schools and cracking down on all behavior that any authority figure may deem as a form of bad behavior. The policy is based upon deterring future misbehavior and is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the effect of any punishment on future behavior is what defines effective punishment (Skinner, 1953). Zero tolerance policies causes the school environment to feel more like a prison and ultimately leads to black and Latinos being judged and guided to the prison system. A zero-tolerance policy orders predetermined penalties or punishments for specific wrongdoings.

Systematic racism within education Institutions, such as the lack of adequate funding as well as subtle discrimination, continues to be the root of the problem that plagues this nation. Even though segregation was abolished in 1964, the lingering effects that remain are significant and cannot be passively mended. Although it is tempting to think that this prejudice is caused by a select few and not the many, it is clear that this problem holds more depth. Recent studies conducted by the National Education Studies (NEA) have proven that even in school’s African American students are often times targeted and punished at a significantly higher rate when compared to their white peers. The study states “Black students make up almost 40 percent of all school expulsions [in the] nation, and more than two thirds of students referred to police from schools are either black or Hispanic” (Blacks: Education Issues). This study conducted by the Department of Education, cabinet-level department of the United States

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

According to Kupchik (2012), the culture of control within the USA allows its government to branch out to and link programs and agencies that involves itself in reducing crime—which also includes schools. This amount of control stems on the foundation of promoting school safety, thus, justifying the excessive use of security measures on school campus.

Everyday students of color are denied their right to a full education due to schools’ harsh disciplinary actions, such as out of school suspension and expulsions. Schools have a responsibility to keep students safe and provide a disciplined learning environment. There is no argument against this, however the methods utilized to provide a safe climate defy this common sense. More specifically, zero tolerance policies, which require students to be punished consistently and severely in a punitive nature. Zero tolerance policies arose in school systems during the 1990s when the justice system was “getting tough” on crime as a tactic to control drug abuse. According the Public Agenda removing students from school is supposed to create a better

Racism is an obstacle that continues to play an active role in daily lives across the global. Currently, Americans are outraged by the actions of white police officers toward black men. In Ferguson, Missouri an unarmed, black teenager was shot by a white police officer and a black man was choked to death by a white officer in New York City. Racial tensions run deep in the United States, but race is social construction that is learned. Sociologist Amanda Lewis’s book, Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities defends the notion that schools are institutions in which children learn about race and maintain racial inequality.

The first reading “Unaccounted Foundations: Black Girls, Anti- Black Racism, and Punishment in Schools” by Connie Wun explores the use of punishment in the educational institutions in order to highlight the racial formations theory that states that race is a permanent fixture but its criteria and implications are fluid over time. Although African American students are seen as a minority, they still make up a large percentage of the victims of formal discipline within schools for violent acts like fighting and nonviolent acts like chewing gum in class. This range of punishment creates a justification for punishing both boys and girls of color. This reading reminds me of the educational institution as another peculiar institution that produces

Though a fair amount of time and money towards searches there is still an alarming amount of theft and assault on school property. As technology has advanced over the years schools have gotten electronic gadgets and techniques to keep students out of trouble. As the amount of technology and precautions taken to avoid students getting in trouble the amount of students breaking rule increases with it. Though schools take many steps to protect students, pupils still report that drugs are made accessible to them on school property, schools combine document that nearly 2 million crimes were reported to them, and many students still feel unsafe (violence in U.S. public schools). These reports show that millions of dollars provided by taxes go towards school security and it has done less than intended.

Public schools in Demarest, New Jersey allow live camera feed from their schools to go directly to the police department, reportedly making students feel extremely uncomfortable. According to Mr. David Rapp, “When word got out that administrators at Seaholm and Groves high school were going to purchase cameras… A band of students protested, saying that it is costly and promoted an atmosphere of distrust…” (David). In other words, students felt that the school was using the budget for an unnecessary purchase to feel more “Secure” when security had not been an issue that required that type of response. Privacy is more important than security in schools because it allows students to feel trusted, builds a sense of responsibility, and promotes an enjoyable atmosphere.

The line between public safety and the continuation of a high standard of privacy for all is a razor thin line; the United States government itself straddles it every day. Such is one very serious complication that the administrators and security forces of Coppell High School face: it is in the best interest of the administrators to prevent drug usage in the school as to stop the spread of any conflict (namely any characteristically delinquent behaviors such as interpersonal violence and school dropout) that they could potentially cause. However, it is also imperative to maintain some level of privacy so that students do not lash out against the administrators and school-wide morale remains fairly high. Numerous students and other relevant