GateHouse Media
November 1, 2019
This week a Pittsburgh family filed a federal lawsuit
against the city’s school district after their first-grader was handcuffed in
class.
The 7-year-old was handcuffed by a Pittsburgh school police
officer at an elementary school after throwing a tantrum in class, according to
WPXI-TV. The lawsuit claims a teacher “placed his knee on [the child’s] back
while he lay on the floor,” and another time “reportedly choked” him. The suit
said the principal, “physically prevented [the child] from leaving a small
room.”
In Orlando, Florida a police officer was recently fired for
restraining a 6-year-old with flex cuffs. In Georgia, a 6-year-old was cuffed
and taken to the police station. There have also been incidents in Mississippi,
St. Louis, New York City, Kentucky and Chicago to name a few.
According to ABC News, FBI statistics show that between 2013
and 2018 at least 30,467 children under the age of 10 were arrested in the
United States. The numbers skyrocket for children between the ages of 10 and 12
with 266,321 arrested during the same six-year time span, according to the
data.
There is no question that young students can involve
themselves in serious violent crime.
In 2018, according to ABC News, 155 children under the age
of 10 were arrested for possessing weapons, 22 were arrested for rape, 11 for
robbery, 56 for arson, and 289 for larceny and theft, including 15 for vehicle
theft. Criminal justice referrals are necessary in those instances.
Most of those crimes were not committed in school. However,
according to the U.S. Department of Education in 2015-2016 over 290,600 cases
in schools were referred to law enforcement or resulted in arrest.
When a school allows a school resource officer—a “specially”
trained police officer assigned to the school—to arrest a student or refer a
student to law enforcement or juvenile court as a form of discipline—they are
using the juvenile justice system as a stand-in for school discipline and the
consequences can be dire.
This process of moving disruptive students from the
principal’s office to the courthouse is known as the “school-to-prison
pipeline.” When young people are criminalized for their behavior in schools,
exposed to law enforcement—and the rest of the criminal justice system—at an
early age, they become more likely to interact with the criminal justice system
down the line.
A 2009 study from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville
found that students in schools with officers were almost three times more
likely to be arrested.
The response to heavy-handed discipline is often that some
of today’s students require extreme means to conform. Teachers and
administrators lament an increase in disrespect, disruption and defiance in the
classroom, even among the youngest students. But does handcuffing students
bring about the school’s intended result?
Research on the subject suggests no. Harsh discipline,
including arrest, may actually do more harm than good. According to Dr. Kathryn
Seifert, in Psychology Today, “physical force as a form of discipline rocks a
child’s world and breeds a general distrust for adults and authority figures.
It may also teach children that the use of force is the best way to settle disputes;
in other words, aggression breeds more aggression.”
Karol Mason, president of John Jay College of Criminal
Justice in New York, told ABC News, “There are a lot of studies that talk about
the effect of trauma on child development and arresting a 7-year-old, putting
them in handcuffs and taking them out of school, that’s trauma and trauma
disrupts normal development,” Mason said. “Is this child going to definitely
wind up in the criminal justice system? No. But are you increasing the
likelihood that it could happen because of this? Yes.”
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
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