According to the ACLU, for many children, the troubling school law was the first introduction to the criminal justice system — children who are then more likely to be arrested as adults. And with disproportionate enforcement and arrest of black children. In South Carolina and elsewhere, the effects are devastating for young people. For example, if children are pushed from school to juvenile justice, they are less likely to graduate and are more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system in the future. Fortunately, research on adolescent development has led to the creation of many school-based approaches to adolescent behavior that are more effective for schools and children. In the year following the filing of our complaint, the Department of Juvenile Justice reported a sharp drop in arrests in troubled schools. Schools, police and communities have begun to change their approach to schoolchildren. Lifting troubling school crimes for students is another important step in the right direction for South Carolina students. We will continue to fight to ensure that no young person is treated as a criminal simply because they are a child. No child should be bothered by racist, regressive and now illegal, “disruptive” school laws anywhere in this country. That is an understatement, is it not? They are police officers with uniforms, badges, guns and buttons posted in our children`s schools.
to protect our children? No, most of the time they are there to watch our children. Let`s call them the school police. The new Disruptive Schools Act went into effect when the governor passed it on September 17. May of this year, and it clarifies that the law only applies to non-students, unless a student threatens to harm or threaten to kill someone. The status of disruptive schools was vague and criminalized “disturbing or disturbing students or teachers of a school or college in any manner or place.” Nothing herein prohibits a private citizen from arresting a citizen in accordance with the laws of this state. For example, two of the children who were plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit were arrested and charged with disrupting schools when they filmed a school police officer brutally assaulting a classmate. The most significant change to the Disruptive Schools Act is that it no longer applies to students – it only applies to people who enter the school and are not allowed to be there. Before sending police officers to our children`s schools, a typical quarrel in a school or a quarrel with a teacher was punished by school suspension, extracurricular suspension or, in serious cases, even expulsion.
Even more “troubling” — Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, even after returning the response, noted that the class teacher and a school administrator said they “appreciate Field`s quick response.” He went on to quote the wording of the troubling school law, saying the child was still being prosecuted for disrupting the classroom. When we filed our lawsuit, thousands of teenagers were arrested every year for talking to another student after being expelled from the classroom, swearing in the canteen, and even speaking out against police misconduct. The vague language of the law, which criminalized minors considered disruptive or offensive in schools, also allowed for different and discriminatory enforcement. Our review found that black teens across the state were nearly four times more likely than their white classmates to be considered a crime-disruptive school. In Charleston, black teens were six times more likely to be charged with the crime, and the disruptive school was the main reason teens entered the juvenile justice system. The student was arrested and accused of disrupting schools. And two other students who recorded the violence were also accused of disrupting schools. This is an example of why disruptive school law was unacceptable and why school police cannot be given broad discretion – this was not an isolated incident or a “bad apple”. From top to bottom – the sheriff himself defended the deputy, blamed the victim, and sued the students. South Carolina`s “disruptive schools” law was amended after the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled that the law was unconstitutionally vague and disproportionately enforced against black students and students with disabilities. When we sent police officers to our children`s schools, they started doing what the police do: assert their authority, physically treat the children and arrest them.
Unsurprisingly, this law disproportionately affected students of color, who are already over-supervised outside the school walls, so we filed a lawsuit in August 2016. Last month, we won a victory on behalf of all the students who have been drawn into the maze of the state`s criminal justice system. On May 17, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed an amendment repealing the crime of disrupting schools for students in the state of South Carolina. The importance of signing this law cannot be underestimated. Its passage will eliminate a key source of the school-to-prison pipeline that has caused serious and permanent harm to South Carolina students. In addition to the immediate harms of being arrested and subjected to the criminal justice system, students are also subject to stricter discipline, which may include exclusion or assignment to alternative programs that do not provide a pathway to graduation. Stigma and continued distance from school are also likely to follow and increasingly compromise academic success. And a criminal record alone can close the door on employment, university and housing. Under the old version of the troubling school law, school resource officers charged students with crimes that are typical child behavior. Wait, school resource officer? The problem? Any student can be charged with a 90-day offence for disrupting or disturbing a student or teacher in a public school – including elementary, middle and secondary schools.
In 2015, a video surfaced in which a police officer forcibly dragged a black girl out of her school office. He arrested her and used outrageously excessive force because she was “disrupting the school,” a vague law that made it more or less criminal for a student to speak loudly to school staff or police.