Missouri: The School-to-Prison Pipeline Needs Some Grease

This will be used against students of color, disabled students, and especially disabled students of color. https://t.co/JcK9S3V1vv

— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) December 21, 2016

The State of Missouri has passed a new statute that will treat school fights as a felony. With credit to the journalist Sarah Kendzior (see the tweet above), here's how a local school district is interpreting it:

Dear Parents/Guardians:
We want to make you aware of a few new State Statutes that will go into effect on January 1, 2017, which may have a drastic impact on how incidents are handled in area school districts.
The way the new statue reads, if a person commits the offense of an assault in the third degree this will now be classified as a Class E Felony, rather than a misdemeanor. If he or she knowingly causes physical injury to another person (hits someone or has a fight with another individual and an injury occurs) – one or both participants may be charged with a Felony.
What does this mean for students?
For example, if two students are fighting and one child is injured, the student who caused the injury may be charged with a felony. Student(s) who are caught fighting in school, bus or on school grounds may now be charged with a felony (no matter the age or grade level), if this assault is witnessed by one of the School Resource Officers/police officers (SRO) or if the SRO/local law enforcement officials have to intervene.

Hazelwood is a St. Louis suburb just northwest of  Ferguson, for reference. It's majority white, but with a substantial (35% or so) non-white population.

This law will be enforced unequally. Yes, the law is the law, but enforcement of the law - what behaviors are or are not criminalized - will be refracted through all the individual and systemic biases of American society.

A few key phrases:

• "No matter the age or grade level" - 5 year olds will be charged for fighting.
• "If the assault is witnessed" - The presence of SROs in the school intensifies the likelihood of criminalization, rather than peace.

The law will result in children of color, disabled children, and especially disabled children of color being criminalized, incarcerated, and otherwise removed from society. That is the intention of such laws. The school-to-prison pipeline is not an accident or side-effect. It's working as designed.

Smiling parents and administrators will counter, "just don't fight!" And then when kids fight, "You shouldn't have fought! You should have complied with rules." And thus the #cultofcompliance will help grease the school to prison pipeline for marginalized children.

School to Prison and Disability: Black Hard of Hearing 7 Year Old Was Crying about being Bullied. Cops Handcuffed Him

The story of Kaylb Primm got a lot of attention last week. It's yet another story of a non-white child being handcuffed (I've written about such cases  regularly. See below for links) in school for behavioral reasons. The MO ACLU is suing. Rebecca Klein, from Huffington Post, wrote a widely shared story.

Kaylb Wiley Primm was in second grade in Kansas City when he started crying in class because he was being bullied. Within minutes, the child found himself in handcuffs. Two years later, his life is just getting back to normal.
The incident began when a school-based police officer happened to walk by Kaylb’s classroom and hear him crying and disrupting other students, according to a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Kaylb’s family. When Kaylb continued to cry and yell in the hallway, against the officer’s requests, the officer put the child in handcuffs and brought him to the main office, where he sat until a parent arrived.

Klein didn't mention it, but I thought - we're going to find out he's got a disability.

A lawyer friend, this morning, sent me the complaint, and sure enough:

15. At the time of the incident giving rise to this complaint, Plaintiff was seven years old and was finishing his second-grade year at George Melcher Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri, which is part of the KCPS system.
16. Plaintiff has a hearing impairment in one ear and was bullied and taunted by classmates from time to time. 

In other words, the disability aspect of this incident was directly causal, perhaps in more way than one. First, the bullying emerged from ableism. Second, it's not improbable that the officer shouting at the boy (which caused him to cry more, which then led to more shouting, grabbing painfully, and then the handcuffing) was not an effective means to communicate with a distraught boy who is hard of hearing. 

Not all the media coverage even mentions Primm's disability, which troubles me. I don't see any coverage that actually cites the disability issues and the high rate of such encounters for disabled non-white children  in particular. I don't see any coverage that talks to people from the Deaf/HoH community or other experts in disability discrimination in schools. We can't erase the disability component of Primm's identity from this story, or any story.

My published writing on the abuse of disabled children by law enforcement in schools.

• Hung by his Belt: Mistreatment of Disabled Child in Georgia (CNN.com, 5/4/16)
• How to End the School to Prison Pipeline (Pacific Standard, 3/24/16)
• When Teachers Abuse Disabled Children (Pacific Standard, 12/17/2015)
• The Outrage of Handcuffing Children in Schools (CNN.com, 8/5/15)
• The Corrosive Cult of Compliance in Our Schools (Al Jazeera America, 4/22/15)

And recent blog posts on this manifestation of the Cult of Compliance

• In Georgia Schools, in Chicago - handcuffed beneath a stair, about 15 cases I pulled together for the Al Jazeera piece. 

Testimony for Missouri Senate - SB 802

It's my understanding that the head of NARAL - Missouri will read this Testimony at a Senate Hearing for SB 802, a bill that make it illegal to have an abortion after a pre-natal diagnosis.

Resources.

• SB 802 text.
• An article I wrote for CNN on the Ohio version of this bill.

My testimony:

I am the father of a boy with Down syndrome and am opposed to SB 802. This bill will not lower rates of abortion following a pre-natal diagnosis nor will it help people with Down syndrome.

1) The best way to prevent abortions after a prenatal diagnosis is to make the words "Down syndrome" less scary. These bills will make it harder, even criminal, to talk about Down syndrome and abortion.

2) The Down syndrome community broadly supports non-partisan pro-information legislation. We want parents who get a diagnosis to get the best possible information. Criminalizing abortion based on a prenatal diagnosis will just make it harder to talk about these issues. Missouri passed a pro-information bill in 2007 (L. 2007 H.B. 818 § 191.912). It should fully fund that bill.

3) Every day people with Down syndrome are exceeding the boundaries of what we thought possible in education, jobs, personal lives, and contributions to the community. All efforts should be focused on telling these stories and bringing these opportunities to more people. 

4) We know that many women terminate pregnancies after a prenatal diagnosis because they believe they cannot afford to raise a child with Down syndrome. The best way to change that is to better fund special education, healthcare, respite care, and all the other support services that our community needs.