In a diary I posted a couple of weeks ago, I was called daft for suggesting that every individual in a society has the power and right to maintain peace in his or her community and that the failure to do so is directly related to the violence we see in schools. I was also accused of appealing to anarchy for suggesting the previously mentioned. Here is the third installment of my rebuttal.
Please be sure to read part 1 and part 2
The following is the comment that caused me to write this diary series:
Violence in a social context is "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill someone or something" your "swift and intense force" definition is a generic abstract used to describe things like "violent seas" or "the violence of a tornado".
MLK's nonviolence protests can NOT be redefined as a form of violence, unless and until the word no longer has meaning.
And equating the type of violence that school police are there to prevent or address to civil rights or the revolutionary war is a most disingenuous vapid exercise in word-twisting.
Furthermore, a common measure of a civilized society is one where the government has a monopoly on violence. Your #2 driveling reeks of vigilantism and anarchy not to mention a loose grip on the facts of Citizen's Arrest.
Citizen's arrests are very high risk, statutorily limited on a state-by-state basis and SPECIFICALLY carry no right or promise of protection against liability from the "arrested". Sworn law-enforcement have a blanket shield if they can show they were acting in proper accordance with laws and departmental instruction. Any individual that tries to do the right thing and make a citizen's arrest (excepting cases where they are asked for assistance by police) face STRICT LIABILITY (and that phrase as specific legal meaning) for every single action they take against another citizen. This is not something we should be recklessly promoting.
And as for number three, for anyone that managed to read that far, if you are talking about the societal notion that actions only have consequences when caught, that is a larger debate irrespective of whether or not police are on campus. But your other comment in that paragraph that the media "re-enforces (sic) the idea that the police has (sic AGAIN) authority over us" is a non-starter. Yes, the police have authority... that's the POINT of police. They are the ones we dutifully select, train, equip and empower to enforce ALL laws over ALL citizens within their jurisdiction. It doesn't mean their power is not limited or that they are immune from facing consequences for bad actions, but they do and SHOULD have a significant and purposefully disproportionate amount of power, physically, tactically and legally.
It is this kind of thinking that is the most dangerous in a free and democratic society.
It is true that citizen arrest is not protected against the same liability that an officers is. In truth, the officer’s protection allows that officer to commit unjust acts while conducting an arrest. It is the “blanket shield” the commenter referred to that allows some officers to engage in corrupt acts. The commenter also doesn’t take in account that officers are just employed (by government) to use citizen’s arrest and given liability to do so while the rest of the population works. This is all paid for by your tax dollars so you don’t have to do it. This does not mean you do not still have the right to do so. It is irrational to suggest that someone cannot apprehend a criminal with the same authority that an officer has. An arrest is supposed to be made in a way that minimal physical harm is done to the suspect regard of who is making the arrest. After the arrest is made, that person is supposed to alert someone who is paid to make the arrest. Nevertheless the thinking of the commenter is the reason why many criminals are able to get away committing a crime. This is the same reason why there are school shooting. Those who engage in criminal acts are convinced (and rightly so) that in the absence of police officers they can commit a crime with no repercussions unless they are caught by an officer. And so we have a society where crime is normal in certain communities.
In order to combat this crime we give more power to police departments and government in exchange for “protection.” Yet the result of the loss of rights brings more tyranny. The idea of our constitution was to limit the power of government while allowing the people to retain the right to protect themselves from government and others. The suggestion that this belief is the promotion of anarchy is absurd and the result of loss of knowledge throughout the generations. It is not anarchy to want to protect yourself and your neighbors.
What does this have to do with education?
The violence in schools is the result of a spillover of crime from outside of schools. The solution to any issue that a society faces must be approached at the root cause. Violence must be stopped in the communities before schools will be free of violence. Is this hard to understand? If we allow violence to spill over into schools then police will naturally spill over into schools as well. This goes back to the point I made previously about the police’s failure to do the job they’re hired to do. It appears that police officers aren’t trained in preventative methods but they are trained in reactionary methods. Same is true in schools. Preventative methods aren’t being used to defuse potential violent acts. Therefore the violence continues.
-Bryant