When “Class Clown” Behavior Results in Arrests

Albuquerque Civil Rights Attorney Represents Students Facing Misdemeanors

Video Transcript:

Shannon Kennedy: 

We call it the public school-to-prison pipeline, because the schools become like prisons, and the more children have contact with officers when they're younger, the more likely they are to end up in jail and prison instead of in college.

Tom Mustin: 

What is the school-to-prison pipeline? We're gonna talk to attorney Shannon Kennedy about that on today's Ask the Lawyer. Shannon, thanks for joining us.

Shannon Kennedy: 

You're welcome. Nice to be here.

Tom Mustin: 

Great to talk to you. Can you explain to us what you've seen in your practice where minor children are arrested for misdemeanors on public school property, and give us some examples, 'cause I know your website says burping or refusing to hand over cell phones or failure to attend detention, which is pretty amazing.

Shannon Kennedy: 

Yes, you know, sadly in the state of New Mexico as across this country, we see in public schools, after the Columbine shootings that police officers who are retired would sign back up to the force and becomes school resource officers and be placed within schools. And they began to criminalize basically the class clown. So we saw sadly disproportionately children of color, and particularly African-American, young African-American female students being arrested for not following the rules, like for instance, we had a client who was arrested because she wouldn't put her cell phone away. Now, if she wasn't in school, of course, she couldn't be arrested for not putting her cell phone away. So we were seeing school districts that were getting rid of certain children by calling the school resource officer arresting these children, removing them to detention centers without even telling their parents that they've been removed from school. So we did some class action lawsuit to prevent the criminalization of basically misbehavior by middle school and high school students. We even had a seven-year-old autistic child who was handcuffed to a chair because that child was unruly. And oftentimes, we see children who are disabled being disproportionately arrested by school resource officers in violation of their IEPs, there are individualized educational plans.

Shannon Kennedy: 

And we call it the public school-to-prison pipeline, because the schools become like prisons, and the more children have contact with officers when they're younger, the more likely they are to end up in jail and prison instead of in college.

Tom Mustin: 

Wow, it's really amazing to hear this conversation going on in 2022, but I want to ask you, all these minor infractions usually handled through the school administration, or is it common for the police to be involved with this?

Shannon Kennedy: 

Well, what happened is, we used to have principals and assistant principals who would discipline those students like, breakfast club where everyone gets detention for being late or for goofing off in class or passing notes, or the one who was burping and made a joke. And the other thing we see is that many of these arrests are taking place before the lunch hour, and when you have public schools that provide a free launch or provide breakfast for students, there is far more disruption in the classrooms and far fewer arrests, so there's just very simple solutions to stop this. But one thing that was happening was that the principals, instead of doing the traditional functioning of disciplining rowdy students, would instead just call the school resource officer, have them arrested and removed from school, and then they were suspended because they'd been arrested thereby leapfrog in the due process rights of the students. So it was a way to get rid of students without due process by using school resource officers to remove those students that were having disciplinary problems.

Tom Mustin: 

And you've already touched on this a little bit, but tell us a little bit more about the school-to-prison pipeline, and is this a problem throughout the state of New Mexico?

Shannon Kennedy: 

It was a problem most specifically in the City of Albuquerque, usually the public school-to-prison pipeline is something that happens in inner cities. It's an urban problem. I mean, just like everyone knows in rural areas where everyone grows up together and there's a sense of community, there are not school resource officers that have been put in the public schools, so this is really a problem that disproportionately impacts urban kids growing up in the city in the public schools. And sadly, instead of investing in social workers and therapists and after school programs and the arts and all of the things that enrich in our school communities, instead, school districts were paying for the police to come in and search the lockers of children and really turning schools into detention centers instead of places of joy and public learning.

Tom Mustin: 

And you said it's mostly affecting disabled people and minorities there?

Shannon Kennedy: 

Absolutely, it has a disparate impact and it's discriminatory, and the statistics bear that out all throughout the country.

Tom Mustin: 

So what do you hope to accomplish with this type of legislation, I'm sorry, with these types of litigation and how can this school-to-prison pipeline be stopped or can it be stopped?

Shannon Kennedy: 

Well, in the city of Albuquerque, we reduce the number of students being removed from school by simply making rules that the school resource officers could not arrest and remove children for non-violent misdemeanor crimes or misconduct, so if there is in fact a student who is threatening either physically or with a weapon on campus, of course, that is a felony crime and that child could be removed, however, if it's a non-violent misdemeanor, officers were instructed to de-escalate the situation, call the parents, and if the child still needed to be removed, to be taken to a community center as opposed to the D-home. And of course, there was no need for the restraint or the handcuffing of children.

Tom Mustin: 

Right. Well, we really appreciate your expertise, Shannon. Thanks so much for joining us.

Shannon Kennedy: 

You're welcome.

Tom Mustin: 

We appreciate your time. That'll do it for this episode of Ask the lawyer. My guest has been Shannon Kennedy. If you wanna ask Shannon a question about your situation, call the number you see on your screen. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Mustin for Ask the Lawyers.

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