Grand Rapids Police chief Harry Dolan called this week for uniformed police officers to be placed in Grand Rapids’ public and private schools according to widespread media reports. Placing the request in the context of a gang-related shooting that killed a sixteen year old at a roller skating rink over the weekend, Dolan says that he would “do this tomorrow if he had the resources” and said that the only thing stopping the plan is funding. Dolan has written the plan into the Grand Rapids Police Department’s 2007-2009 strategic plan and is hoping to secure funding, estimated at $70,000 per officer, to place police officers in all of the city’s middle and high schools. According to the Grand Rapids Press, local educators support the plan with the only reservations about it being expressed by Grand Rapids Public Schools superintendent Bernard Taylor who said that the “key is for the police not to treat the children like potential criminals.”

However, there is no guarantee that police will in the schools will not treat youth as criminals. Measures such as putting police in public schools have become commonplace around the country and are part of an overall system of discipline that increasingly views high school students as a population that needs to be controlled first and educated second. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asserts that “constitutional violations are far too common in high schools” and has compiled a number of resources examining areas in which schools are often guilty of infringing on students’ rights including random drug testing, freedom of expression, and privacy rights. In recent years, the question of police in schools has become particularly contentious with regard to random drug tests with both the legality and the conduct of police in executing drug raids in schools drawing the attention of civil liberties and youth rights organizations. The criminalization of youth has been seen in recent years through the enactment of curfew laws, video surveillance in the public schools, laws that prevent youths from gathering with other youths in public under the guise of fighting gangs, zero tolerance laws, and other forms of harassment promoted by politicians that view “teenager” as a synonym for “criminal.” The criminalization of youth also has to be seen within a racial context, with the media and politicians frequently playing up the idea that society is “scared of its youth” although that most often functions as coded language for white Americans fearing youth of color.