Kids or criminals?

More food for thought on whether BHS needs a campus police officer:

Kimberly Ambrose, supervising attorney of the University of Washington Law School Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic, wrote a guest column for today’s P-I about the dangers of too much police involvement in schools. She points out the murky area between normal juvenile misbehavior and serious problems that warrant calling the police.

“What is ‘crime’ at school?” she asks. “Is it a fight between sixth-graders where bloody noses are exchanged?”

“What about the teenager who chases down his classmate, shoves him, a struggle ensues and one student runs off with the other boy’s hat?” she continues. “Those facts fit within the definition of robbery in the second degree, a violent felony.”

Ambrose focuses on large urban areas like New York and Seattle, where “the learning environment suffers, minority children are affected the most and school safety does not improve.”

The demographics on Bainbridge are much different, and at first blush it may seem that we don’t have the same worries about criminalizing our kids. Let ‘em take the consequences of their stupid decisions, the argument around here goes. Daddy will get them a good lawyer anyway.

Maybe. But the question of when behavior is a school discipline matter and when it’s a crime that warrants police involvement is an important one. And, I suspect, one that elicits strong and divided opinions in the community. That’s no reason to avoid an open, thoughtful discussion about it among teachers, administrators, police, parents and kids before we embark on a security clamp-down at BHS. (School Board president Bruce Weiland reminded me that the Board discussed the SRO in an open public meeting last year. I’m talking about a less formal, more inclusive public conversation.)

As a mom of three sons (including one who turned 21 last week—yes-s-s!), I know the better part of raising teens is to pick your battles and avoid overreacting, even when they’ve really blown it. Most of the BHS administration has been level-headed about keeping things in perspective and generous with second chances in appropriate (non-violent) cases of misbehavior. With a police officer on campus, will matters that once got a kid sent to Saturday school or suspended now result in a referral to the prosecutor’s office?

To be sure, last year’s uptick in serious crimes warranted a closer look at student behavior. There were two phoned in bomb threats on test days. There was a note threatening to shoot students. At least as serious, in my book, was the months of bullying, harassment and indecent exposure directed at a special needs student that finally resulted in criminal charges.

But of the 54 incidents to which the Bainbridge police responded last year, the vast majority of them involved petty theft, graffiti and malicious mischief (more than 30 of the 54 incidents were in those categories.) Almost all of the remaining incidents involved alcohol (3), drugs (4) and traffic accidents or infractions (8). Last year there were 9 more incidents than in school year 2005-2006, but 5 less than in 2004-2005. You can read the police campus crime data since 2003 here: incidents-at-high-school-1.pdf

It’s a sign of the times that increased security seems to be a concrete and relatively easy response to problems with psychological, sociological and emotional components. Fortunately, BHS is planning more ways to increase campus safety, like an online, anonymous system for students to report dangerous behavior.

More importantly, BHS’s work plan includes implementing “specific community/relationship building strategies as developed via student, staff and parent community involvement processes in response to and as suggested by the data collected via the Fall 2006 Healthy Youth Survey.” (I just have to ask: Who writes these work plans? Please say it’s not a teacher.)

In any event, I hope it means the district will consider new programs that enhance kids’ mental health and well-being–which in turn can increase safety–instead of stopping at the penal code approach.