Source: https://indianalawreview.com/2016/01/11/badged-bullies-belittling-the-brazen-a-look-into-how-school-resource-officers-contribute-to-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:20:02+00:00

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After reviewing this incident, along with countless others where SROs resort to such extreme measures to obtain compliance, the question becomes whether schools are actually in the business of teaching and learning or whether they have effectively become authoritarian day prisons. Generally speaking, students are most impressionable during the early years of their life.  They have limited life experiences and, as a result, tend to view the world through a lens with an untainted prescription.  Society takes advantage of this malleability of the mind by insisting on general education, intended to sculpt more informed and morally-centered individuals. Unfortunately, this process does not occur without its own imperfections. Certain principles must be given additional attention, concepts must be revisited, and processes must be retooled to ensure proper assimilation given the specific audience.
Judge Moores’ concern is valid. It is folly to think that saddling children with criminal records is not inimical to the educational process. Similarly, it is unwise to think that in-school police officers who seem beholden to brutality will inspire change and ward off rebellion. Indeed, current case law does little to dispel the notion that SROs are in schools to expedite the pathways to incarceration. The Indiana Supreme Court, for example, stated that “the school setting requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject.”  Thus, officers acting as agents of a school for disciplinary purposes may stop a student to demand identification,  seize a student on an uncorroborated anonymous tip without reasonable articulable suspicion,  and conduct a pat-down search of a student without warrant or probable cause —all of which would be unconstitutional for law-enforcement purposes. Yet, the distinction between SROs and law enforcement seems to become more complex. Although the court suggested it did not seek to blur an already-fine Fourth Amendment line between school discipline and law-enforcement duties, it did just that by recycling law enforcement language in the context of school disciplinary issues.  Furthermore, considering statutes like Indiana Code section 20-26-16-2, which permits school districts to create their own police departments, one can only wonder how transparent this Fourth Amendment line can become before its boundaries retain no normative connotations.
Additionally, officers must complete forty hours of SRO training through a certified training program.  This additional training requires instruction regarding skills, tactics, and strategies for school campuses and school building security needs and characteristics.  Oddly enough, the forty hours of SRO training does not seek to understand the population in which it serves. Although the training prepares the officers to handle scenarios typically experienced while patrolling the streets, this training does little to enlighten the officers about the challenges they will face once they enter the schoolhouse.
Current SRO training requirements should be adjusted to protect not only the physical assets but the human ones as well.  Specifically, new legislation should “[r]equire all law enforcement training academies to include instruction on youth and adolescent development, age appropriate interactions, and de-escalation techniques as part of basic training curriculums.”  Furthermore, the statute should include instruction regarding: (1) SRO roles and responsibilities as defined by written school policy; (2) differences between disciplinary infractions and criminal conduct; (3) differences between administrative sanctions and criminal penalties; (4) child and adolescent development; (5) age appropriate interactions; (6) age appropriate responses to disciplinary or criminal conduct; (7) conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques; (8) identification of abuse and neglect; (9) behaviors associated with abuse or neglect; (10) resources available to victims of abuse or neglect; (11) explanation of learning disabilities, emotional issues, and behavioral disabilities; (12) legal protections available to students who receive special education services; (13) bias free policing; (14) cultural sensitivity and awareness; (15) adverse consequences of criminal prosecution; (16) local youth services; and (17) mental health services.
There are a myriad of different options available to rupture and sever the school-to-prison pipeline permanently. One option is to require additional training for SROs. Although the issues arising from criminally charging students for behavioral issues were once seen as peripheral and harmless, they are now more aggressive and should now be at the forefront of concerns. Additional training requirements would bring the students back to the center of the school system and remove them from the purview of the justice system as it relates to disciplinary issues. Such training would work toward keeping students retained in schools as opposed to detained in the juvenile justice system.
 See Karega Rausch & Russell Skiba, Unplanned Outcomes: Suspensions and Expulsions in Indiana, 2 Educ. Pol’y Briefs 1, 2 (2004).
[A] career law enforcement officer, with sworn authority, deployed in community-oriented policing, and assigned by the employing police department or agency to work in collaboration with schools and community-based organizations—(A) to address crime and disorder problems, gangs, and drug activities affecting or occurring in or around an elementary or secondary school; (B) to develop or expand crime prevention efforts for students; (C) to educate likely school-age victims in crime prevention and safety; (D) to develop or expand community justice initiatives for students; (E) to train students in conflict resolution, restorative justice, and crime awareness; (F) to assist in the identification of physical changes in the environment that may reduce crime in or around the school; and (G) to assist in developing school policy that addresses crime and to recommend procedural changes.
42 U.S.C. § 3796dd-8 (2012).
 See Rausch & Skiba, supra note 1, at 2.
 See, e.g., infra notes 7-9.
 Sharif Durhams, Tosa East Student Arrested, Fined After Repeated Texting, Milwaukee J. Sentinel, Feb. 18, 2009, at B8, available at http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/39711222.html [perma.cc/8AT7-ZFPH]. In this incident, a SRO arrested a fourteen-year-old girl for text messaging in school. Id. The girl refused to stop text messaging after her teacher asked her to stop. Id. The student was arrested and given a $298 fine for disorderly conduct. Id.
 Udi Ofer, Criminalizing the Classroom: The Risk of Aggressive Policing and Zero Tolerance Discipline in New York City Public Schools, 56 N.Y. L. Sch. L. Rev. 1373, 1377 n.13 (2012) (noting a report that a SRO arrested a thirteen-year-old boy in Florida for passing gas in school and turning off a classmate’s computer, and that the boy was later charged with disruption of a school function).
 Bob Herbert, 6-Year-Olds Under Arrest, N.Y. Times, Apr. 9, 2007, at A17, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/opinion/09herbert.html [perma.cc/5M7S-XY79]. In this incident, police officers handcuffed and arrested six-year-old Desre’e Watson for throwing a temper tantrum in kindergarten class. Id. According to the police department, “Watson was upset and crying and wailing and would not leave the classroom to let them study, causing a disruption of the normal class activities.” Id. The officers took Desre’e to central booking, fingerprinted, photographed, and charged her with battery against a school official—a felony—, and two misdemeanors. Id.
 South Carolina School Officer Fired After Violent Arrest of Female Student Captured on Video, KTLA (Oct. 28, 2015, 9:16 AM), http://ktla.com/2015/10/28/south-carolina-school-officer-fired-after-violent-arrest-of-student/ [perma.cc/SLG8-KADD] [hereinafter South Carolina School Officer].
 FBI to Lead Investigation of Violent Incident at Spring Valley High School, WISTV (Oct. 26, 2015, 4:20 PM), http://www.wistv.com/story/30353999/video-shows-confrontation-between-spring-valley-student-and-school-resource-officer [perma.cc/M38R-WRKW].
 South Carolina School Officer, supra note 10.
 Ralph Ellis & Jareen Imam, South Carolina Students Protest Firing of School Resource Officer, CNN (Oct. 31, 2015, 12:51 PM), http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/30/us/south-carolina-school-resource-officer/ [perma.cc/3K2B-4GB4].
 See Rachel Nuwer, Teenage Brains Are like Soft, Impressionable Play-Doh, Smithsonian (Oct. 18, 2012), http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/teenage-brains-are-like-soft-impressionable-play-doh-78650963/?no-ist [perma.cc/3KEK-9H5A].
 Zero tolerance policies are school discipline policies that create mandatory punishments for specific offenses. See S. David Mitchell, Zero Tolerance Policies: Criminalizing Childhood and Disenfranchising the Next Generation of Citizens, 92 Wash. U. L. Rev. 271, 277 (2014). Under so-called “zero tolerance” policies, schools do not make exceptions or substitute punishments under any circumstances. Id. The result is often severe punishment for any breach of a rule, regardless of how minor or whether there are extenuating circumstances. Id.
 Letter from Marilyn A. Moores, Judge, Marion Superior Court Juvenile Div., to Superintendents, Marion County, Indiana (Jan. 30, 2015) (on file with the author).
 New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 340 (1985).
 D.L. v. State, 877 N.E.2d 500, 505–06 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007).
 T.S. v. State, 863 N.E.2d 362, 376–77 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007).
 C.S. v. State, 735 N.E.2d 273, 276 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000); D.B. v. State, 728 N.E.2d 179, 181 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000).
 See generally K.W. v. State, 984 N.E.2d 610, 613 (Ind. 2013).
 Basic Training – Tier 1, IN.gov, http://www.in.gov/ilea/2380.htm [perma.cc/G6PZ-MAXH] (last visited Dec. 17, 2015); see also Ind. Code § 5-2-1-9 (2015).
 Ind. Code § 20-26-18.2(b) (2015).
 H.B. 1596, 119th Gen. Assemb., 1st Reg. Sess. (Ind. 2015).
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