By Bryant Muldrew
After listening in on a conversation students were having about police presence in school, I began to contemplate why police are necessary on a school campus. After hours of mediation on the subject, I developed the following ideas:
Police presence in school is a clear culture issue. There are three elements that people are being taught which perpetuate the culture that requires police presence in schools. I will explore the three and provide my opinion of them below
1. People are taught that all violence is wrong.
Violence is simply defined as swift and intense force. There are other definitions which terms like unjust or unwarranted exertion of force. So people are taught that all [unwarranted] swift and intense force is wrong. Keep in mind that unwarranted means without authority. Many assume that violence equates to physical contact between individuals. A critical analysis of the definition can disabuse anyone of this notion. In this sense, the occupy movement could be considered as an act of violence. Even Dr Martin Luther King’s nonviolent marches in southern cities can been as a use of intense force (considering that mass gatherings of people are a form of force) therefore an act of violence. Some might consider this a stretch, but again violence is a swift and intense force. If all students would protest against the structure and policy of the public school system utilizing their “unwarranted” collective force, then they would transform schooling into whatever they desired. Nevertheless, there were many acts of violence which took the form of physical contact. The revolutionary war, the civil war, and the civil rights movements are just a few examples.
All violence is not wrong and we should not teach students that does not have a place in our society.
2. People are taught that the police are the only people with the power to maintain peace.
Where do police officers get there authority from? Authority is given by the consent of the general public. The power to arrest is derived from the power to citizen’s arrest. Police officers are employed to use the power to citizen’s arrest. Despite this fact, we are taught to call upon police officers for every minor and major problem. Whether it is a robbery, domestic violence, mutual combat, or a disturbance of the peace, we are taught not to get involved. I believe the reason is rooted in the teaching that all violence is wrong (of course this doesn’t apply to an officer). In order to combat some crimes, there is a need to use intense force. Imagine if students were taught to stop fights in schools by restraining their peers (which would require intense force). What would school and the larger society look like if we were taught that we all had the power to maintain peace?
3. People are taught that they only need to control themselves in the presence of police.
This teaching is laced in many forms of media we watch daily. The most predominate is the television. At anytime, a television viewer has access to different shows depicting countless criminal behaviors. In essence, there are many shows that glorify criminal activity. All in the same shows, criminals are shown as respecting police authority enough to behave differently in their presence. Similar scenes can be seen in movies and certain cartoons. In addition there is a plethora of cops shows which re-enforces the idea that the police has authority over us. Remember media has a tremendous of influence over the culture of a society.
We have to wrestle against the establishment of this culture; especially in schools. School is the place where youth learn to participate in society. In order to fight this, there is a need for a participatory democracy which includes people taking personal responsibility for maintaining peace and changing the culture of public education through a National Student Bill of Rights.
Do you think police presence is necessary on school campuses? Why? Is there another to way to reach the same end as putting police in school?