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School monitors and courtesy officers are police that are on campus to... be cops on school grounds? I've honestly never been clear on what they're there for, but they're there full time usually.

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My high school had/has? a liaison officer. He helped me recover an iPod that was stolen on school grounds, and I think was a resource to break up the average of 2 - 3 fights we had a week, but I never saw him put his hands on a student. Mostly it was teachers & hall monitors responsible for physically breaking up fights.

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The idea of an on-site police officer in schools is so bizarre to me. I wonder what (if any) psychological effect it has on the students. As I imagine it, it would make the place seem like a permanent conflict zone. But perhaps it's not like that, or perhaps they're in schools that already were that. I don't know. It does seem like it could strongly influence children's feelings about authority, trust and conflict resolution, though. Does it make school feel a bit like a prison? Or are they not that visible most of the time?

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The idea of an on-site police officer in schools is so bizarre to me. I wonder what (if any) psychological effect it has on the students. As I imagine it, it would make the place seem like a permanent conflict zone. But perhaps it's not like that, or perhaps they're in schools that already were that. I don't know. It does seem like it could strongly influence children's feelings about authority, trust and conflict resolution, though. Does it make school feel a bit like a prison? Or are they not that visible most of the time?

 

My high school growing up had a couple of officers as liaisons. If I remember, one hung out in the parking lot in his car and the other stood in A Hall, close to the front entrance. That's for a school of 2,400 people. You'd see him when you went to and from school, as well as occasionally on the way to class, but you eventually tuned him out, unless you were a pothead or black. It's not too different from how security guards are usually dressed to look as much like police officers as possible, just so that the uniform cows people and so they get used to being under passive surveillance all the time.

 

I didn't have much contact with the outdoor cop, who seemed just to be there to spook would-be car thieves and asshole drivers, the indoor cop at my school was good-natured in almost every instance. He was mostly there to arbitrate petty crimes between students (like the theft incident that jennagatron mentioned) and to provide first response for student-on-student violence. He put himself in danger more than a couple times, throwing himself bodily between two dudes fighting so that the teachers could restrain them without risking harm to themselves. I do remember that a couple of teachers, the less competent ones, were prone to calling him into their classrooms to intimidate unruly students, which no one but those teachers seemed to like, but he never arrested anyone for disciplinary infractions, to my memory, and definitely not on his own initiative.

 

It's definitely a weird thing, I just never thought about it because I was a kid and I felt like I was surrounded by authority figures with the power to discipline and punish, so the fact that one of them specifically represented the state's monopoly on violence didn't stand out to me as much.

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Come to think of it, my high school had a very pleasant on site cop, kind of bumbling. Mostly what he did was sort out accidents in the student parking lot.

 

They always brought in other cops for random drug dog searches (a friend had his car searched for aspirin?!) and sometimes advise on the days where they felt we needed metal detectors through the doors on some days. That was like twice a year and I'm sure it was to follow some kind of post Columbine compliance bullshit.

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The idea of an on-site police officer in schools is so bizarre to me. I wonder what (if any) psychological effect it has on the students. As I imagine it, it would make the place seem like a permanent conflict zone. But perhaps it's not like that, or perhaps they're in schools that already were that. I don't know. It does seem like it could strongly influence children's feelings about authority, trust and conflict resolution, though. Does it make school feel a bit like a prison? Or are they not that visible most of the time?

 

IDK, but I talked to mine about both of our fascination about AK 47 enthusiastically (it is illegal in my state to get an AK 47 (that gun is banned by name, so you have to get saiga instead)).  Typing that out seem weird but it was a totally cool conversation.

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That's for a school of 2,400 people.

 

And having a cop or officer of some sort in a school that size makes some sense to me, that's only slightly smaller than my hometown (3,500 people when I lived there), and we had a whole police force.  In any ongoing population of a couple of thousand people, you are going to have minor crime, fights, car accidents, etc.  I don't see it as significantly different than having an on site nurse.  The problem is that it is a significantly different job from other forms of policing that should have its own training and requirements and oversight, which is all lacking as far as I know. 

 

I grew up in a different world.  Small town, pre-Columbine, in a world where school shooting wasn't even a phrase, where my dad knew ever cop by first name, and I knew most of them.  My older brother took a gun to a high school football game once in the late 80s (being dumb and showing off), and he didn't even get arrested.  Cops took him to the station, called dad, dad picked him and the gun up.  I can't even imagine how that would play out nowadays, even back there. 

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It sounds like they mostly fade into the background, which is good to hear. I suppose I overdramatise it in my head because my only experience of the idea is stuff like this most recent incident. I guess I should count myself lucky that my school experience was sedate enough that the question of security never even came up.

I wonder whether any studies have been done into the effectiveness of school security. Are they effective deterrents? Do they have a significant impact on incidents that do happen? Not predicting a particular result; just curious.

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And having a cop or officer of some sort in a school that size makes some sense to me, that's only slightly smaller than my hometown (3,500 people when I lived there), and we had a whole police force.  In any ongoing population of a couple of thousand people, you are going to have minor crime, fights, car accidents, etc.  I don't see it as significantly different than having an on site nurse.  The problem is that it is a significantly different job from other forms of policing that should have its own training and requirements and oversight, which is all lacking as far as I know.

 

Yeah, thinking about what I said and what Syn said, it sounds like maybe they just assign cops to school based on ones who seem to have the most appropriate personality? I actually don't know a lot of how the police force decides who has what duties, besides the intense intra-office politics that movies and television show me to be at work.

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It sounds like they mostly fade into the background, which is good to hear. I suppose I overdramatise it in my head because my only experience of the idea is stuff like this most recent incident. I guess I should count myself lucky that my school experience was sedate enough that the question of security never even came up.

I wonder whether any studies have been done into the effectiveness of school security. Are they effective deterrents? Do they have a significant impact on incidents that do happen? Not predicting a particular result; just curious.

 

This is definitely dependent on the cop and the school.

 

I was one of the weird kids at my school (look, I like anime, okay, if that makes me weird then I will bring my Naruto hug pillow to dinner at a fancy date restaurant tomorrow night) and I hung around with some non-white students, so the courtesy officer did not fade into the background.

 

When I was taken into the office for a serious offense, he threatened to arrest me and when I asked for my parents he said that the administration was trying to get in touch with them, but while they were occupied I was all his. He was not a nice guy, and he was very intimidating if he decided he didn't like you. Partly because of him, my senior year of high school school was spent full-time dual enrolled in community college so I didn't have to go to the high school campus.

 

I don't know any by-the-numbers studies, but a purely anecdotal look at the rise of school shootings since courtesy officers became a widespread thing says they're not very effective! Even in schools with officers, they can't be everywhere at once. I think there was some hubbub after Sandy Hook about how the courtesy office did, like, nothing?

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Yeah I see it sort of like airplane security post 9-11. It's just a bunch of overreaction that leads to a bunch of bad feelings and doesn't actually create a much safer environment.

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I don't have any inherent objection to having a cop in a school provided that they behave in a manner closer to that described by gormongous and jennegatron, but that again gets to the difference between peace keeping vs enforcement of authority.

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The school I teach at (grades 5 - 9) has an officer assigned to it and a few others in the area (Constable Payne, I swear to fucking god). I've only ever seen him during a lockdown drill though, so it's not like there's a huge presence.

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In Massachusetts growing up I had a police officer in my school ever since elementary school. He was part of the DARE program (an anti drug thing) and stepped in every now and then for disciplinary issues but for the most part didn't do too much. I think he may have handled things like Truancy as well, but in all time there I don't remember him ever arresting someone. Part of it was likely that these kids are up around him, so he was on a first name basis with a lot of us.

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My junior-high and highschool felt like a violent places. I think there were about 3000 students at my highschool in the mid 1990's. Having a police-officer assigned to the school seemed like a good idea, but using a police officer for forceful removal of a student from a room where violence is not present seems like an impatient abuse of power. I assume the student would have left once the bell rang. When I was in school, there were priviledges which could be taken away from students for disobeying teachers. This scenario just seems like systemic impatience in a racist mindframe dehumanizing a person.

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Wow, I had no idea that having police officers in schools was so common in the States. I guess it makes sense, after Columbine, but I always thought of it as something extreme that you hear about on the news, not commonplace.

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Yeah, thinking about what I said and what Syn said, it sounds like maybe they just assign cops to school based on ones who seem to have the most appropriate personality? I actually don't know a lot of how the police force decides who has what duties, besides the intense intra-office politics that movies and television show me to be at work.

 

I am under the impression that officers assigned to schools (my school had one as well, seemed like a decent guy but then again I'm a nerdy white male) do get some kind of additional training. I don't know that 100%, and I don't know what kind of training or if it's adequate. I do know that officers assigned to college and university campuses are 1) trained police officers and 2) are specifically for the school, rather than city or county officers who are put on duty on a campus.

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Wow, I had no idea that having police officers in schools was so common in the States. I guess it makes sense, after Columbine, but I always thought of it as something extreme that you hear about on the news, not commonplace.

It still feels very extreme to have as a thing we do here. I don't think very many people consider it 'normal.'

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Wow, I had no idea that having police officers in schools was so common in the States. I guess it makes sense, after Columbine, but I always thought of it as something extreme that you hear about on the news, not commonplace.

Really, from a population density point of view it seems like a good idea to have someone around such a concentrated group of people. Any building downtown around here has dedicated security, which isn't exactly the same thing, but I think I'd rather have a cop than an armed security guard.

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It still feels very extreme to have as a thing we do here. I don't think very many people consider it 'normal.'

I think that difference in opinion might be heavily influenced by the circumstances of the school you have in mind. We didn't have anyone getting shot in the hallways, but there were regularly credible threats of serious violence where I was. I got punched out by some random dude I had never spoken a word to while walking down the hallway on one occasion. I watched a kid get the shit kicked out of him by 15-20 kids after they locked the locker-room door. It was not incredibly rare for someone to make threats that involved weapons. These are all violent crimes that I don't think teachers have the juristiction or ability to handle.

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When I was taken into the office for a serious offense, he threatened to arrest me and when I asked for my parents he said that the administration was trying to get in touch with them, but while they were occupied I was all his.

See, this is a large part of why I find the concept so unsettling. School is a strange time with its own particular power dynamics, but when you introduce the threat of arrest and officers of the law, it seems like it puts things into a whole other realm. Like, you can get into serious trouble in school, but in a sense it's its own little world distinct from adult life, and that seems somehow important to me.

Of course, if a serious crime is committed, call in the police, but having that spectre hanging over proceedings at all times seems kind of fucked up. Perhaps in schools with such a high rate of criminal incidents it's just a matter of practicality.

I guess it's logically not so different than a security guard at a shop (though those aren't usually dressed like police over here), but to me it does feel very different.

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Had a FB "discussion" with conservative guy from my hometown high school re: the viral post about the black guy who got pulled over by cops and had a peaceful, respectful interaction and then used his experience to cast doubt on the validity of other people's grievances. Basically, be respectful to the cop and you'll be fine (blame the victim)

I fire back that anecdotes don't make data and linked the Fed study showing the discrimatory practices of Ferguson police, for just one example. He then said that he believes the issue to be one of culture not race (what?) insinuating that black people are responsible for how cops respond to them. I then got an education about how human beings have biases and expectations and how those things are good and help us survive.

It was a frustrating interaction.

Edit: here is the story for context http://www.westernjournalism.com/black-man-packing-a-gun-stopped-by-cops-some-are-furious-he-shared-what-happened-next/

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Someone compiled what the top candidates for the Dems and Republicans are saying about the points from the Campaign Zero site. Bernie Sanders is definitely in the lead here, Clinton isn't even trying, and the Republicans kinda want to make a few of the points actually worse than they already are.

 

https://twitter.com/samswey/status/661745995668062208

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Back in February this year, a police officer shot and killed a suspect that was fleeing from a pull-over situation due to expired tags on the car.

 

According to video playback of the incident, the man was stunned by a taser and the officer ordered the man to show his hands (he was stunned, wtf). She then shot the man twice. The defense argued it was out of fear for her life because the man appeared to be reaching for a weapon while he laid there, still affected by the taser - a weapon that was discovered to not exist when additional units arrived on scene.

 

The jury just acquitted the officer of all charges.

 

While the victim in this murder wasn't black, it falls under the umbrella of police instigated violence and it's worth letting you guys know that this shit is deemed okay; shoot first and ask questions later.

http://www.phillyvoice.com/pennsylvania-officer-acquitted-in-shooting-of-susp/

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