HARTFORD—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, this week addressed the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Collaboration, Intervention, and Policy’s Gun Violence Prevention Research Interest Group on the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, his legislation that seeks to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline by shifting federal funding away from putting police in schools and instead investing billions in hiring counselors and other support personnel, You can read Sen. Murphy’s medium post on this legislation that explains why this issue is important to him, as well as read about what the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act does and does not do.

On the long-term effects that school arrests have on children,  Murphy said: “All across our country, kids are being arrested, sent into the school-to-prison pipeline for ordinary misbehaviors often connected to their disabilities or childhood traumas that they have experienced. And that one negative interaction, which ends up with an arrestable offense, often leads kids down a path from which they can never, ever return.”

On the disproportionate effects police in schools have on minority and disabled students, Murphy said: “[…E]specially for students of color, and especially for disabled children. In Connecticut, a pretty progressive state, if you are a Black student in a school with a school resource officer, you are three times more likely to be arrested than if you're going to school in a school that doesn't have an SRO. For Latino students in our state, for some reason, the number is actually six times. You're six times more likely to be arrested if you're in a school with a school resource officer.”

Murphy continued: “Whether we intend to do this or not, loading our schools up with police officers ends up targeting children of color, often for misbehaviors that should never ever result in a criminal offence. And it's time for us to recognize that while it may make sense to us on a surface level analysis, that school safety must be enhanced by police officers with guns and the power of arrest, that's not what the data tells us. The data increasingly tells us the opposite.”

On the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, Murphy said: “I've introduced this legislation at the federal level which would just say, ‘listen, federal dollars are not going to go to put police officers in schools any longer. They're going to go instead to hire wraparound services for kids that have learning disabilities, who have traumas, who need social workers, who need school psychologists.’ Right? Let's put the resources behind the services that actually build safe schools instead of the services that make us think that we are creating safe schools.”

Murphy concluded: “This legislation has gotten a lot of attention, and I'll end with this. It's gotten a lot of attention, in part, because parents of children in white schools cannot understand why anyone wouldn't want police officers in schools. Right now, we are in the middle of a racial reckoning in this country. We are, I think, at the beginnings of the second Civil Rights Movement. But there is no issue out there, I would argue, like the issue of police in schools in which we have two fundamentally different conversations happening.”

Earlier this year, Senators Murphy and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act earlier in the U.S. Senate along with U.S. Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) who introduced the legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation is supported by the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Center for Law and Social Policy, SPLC Action Fund, Human Rights Campaign, National Urban League, the Justice Collaborative, Girls Inc. Advancement Project, Open Society Policy Center, the Center for Popular Democracy, National Women’s Law Center, Center for Disability Rights, Drug Policy Alliance, National Center for Learning Disabilities, National Disability Rights Network, the Daniel Initiative, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, the Criminalization of Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, the National Center for Youth Law, Education Law Center (PA), PolicyLink, the Boston Teachers Union, the Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston, National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), and GLSEN.

A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks can be found below:

Murphy: “Well, thank you very much President Katsouleas. Thank you for the great leadership that you bring to our flagship State University, and thank you very much to those that are bringing this panel together. I'm looking forward to listening to as much as I can and getting a readout for any portions that I'll miss.

“But this issue is very, very close to my heart. I sit, as the President mentioned, on the Appropriations Committee, but also on the Education Committee, and I am one of the few parents of young children in the United States Senate today.

“I've got a middle schooler and a third grader, both who go to a big urban school district in the public school system. And I have long been active on issues related to juvenile justice and the school to prison pipeline. And I'm excited today to be able to kick off this panel by talking a little bit about the legislation I introduced now a few months ago with Representative Ayanna Presley, bicameral legislation called the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act.

“A lot of my education on this issue, frankly, comes from my wife, who's sitting right around the corner from me listening to me talk about her. She now works on school change on a national basis, but she started out representing individual kids through her work, heading up the children at risk unit at Connecticut Legal Services, Connecticut's legal aid organization.

“And one story that she brought home has stuck with me. It’s the story of a young man, I think he was a 10th grader, in a big Connecticut urban school system, and he had a habit at the beginning of his 10th grade year, of walking out of class in the middle of class, wandering the hallways until he finally bumped into another teacher or administrator, a school security officer, who would bring him down to the principal's office. He ended up getting suspended for a few days and home to his grandmother with whom he lived. This happened over and over again September and October of his 10th grade year such that by the end of October, he had been out of school more days than he had been in school.

“Finally, he was so frustrated by this cycle that he ended up getting into a verbal argument with, I think it was an assistant principal during one of these moments when he was walking through the halls. There was a police officer in the school, a school resource officer, who was alerted to this verbal altercation and ended up getting this kid arrested for, I think, something equivalent to disorderly conduct, an argument in the hallway between him an administrator. Something, that in normal cases, would just end up with this kid being sent to the principal's office.

“Well, as it turned out, essentially, this kid didn't know how to read. He was years and years behind the rest of his peers. He had a learning disability and was mortally embarrassed to sit in this class when he couldn't understand anything that the teacher was talking about. That's why he was walking out. Luckily, he had access to a good legal aid attorney who kept him out of the court system. 

“But this is indicative of what's happening. All across our country, kids being arrested, sent into a ‘school to prison pipeline’ for ordinary misbehaviors often connected to their disabilities or childhood traumas that they have experienced. And that one negative interaction, which ends up with an arrestable offense, often leads kids down a path from which they can never, ever return.

“That is just one story. But unfortunately, it plays out over and over and over again, especially for students of color, and especially for disabled children. In Connecticut, a pretty progressive state, if you are a black student in a school with a school resource officer, you are three times more likely to be arrested than if you're going to school in a school that doesn't have an SRO. For Latino students in our state, for some reason, the number is actually six times. You're six times more likely to be arrested if you're in a school with a school resource officer.

“Whether we intend to do this or not, loading our schools up with police officers ends up targeting children of color, often for misbehaviors that should never ever result in a criminal offence. And it's time for us to recognize that while it may make sense to us on a surface level analysis, that school safety must be enhanced by police officers with guns and the power of arrest, that's not what the data tells us. The data increasingly tells us the opposite.

“We did a survey of schools in New Haven. And what we found out was that in New Haven, the schools with a school resource office had higher rates of delinquent behaviors than schools without school resource officers. Why? Because they create an atmosphere that's not conducive to learning. They make students feel as if they're in a juvenile justice facility rather than a learning environment. And that ends up, unfortunately, leading to many of the behaviors that you're seeking to prevent.

“And so I just think it's time that we draw the line. I've introduced this legislation at the federal level which would just say, ‘listen, federal dollars are not going to go to put police officers in schools any longer. They're going to go instead to hire wraparound services for kids that have learning disabilities, who have traumas, who need social workers, who need school psychologists.’ Right? Let's put the resources behind the services that actually build safe schools instead of the services that make us think that we are creating safe schools.

“This legislation has gotten a lot of attention, and I'll end with this. It's gotten a lot of attention, in part, because parents of children in white schools cannot understand why anyone wouldn't want police officers in schools. Right now, we are in the middle of a racial reckoning in this country. We are, I think, at the beginnings of the second Civil Rights Movement. But there is no issue out there, I would argue, like the issue of police in schools in which we have two fundamentally different conversations happening.

“In white schools, police officers are perceived to be there to protect the kids because, by and large, they are protecting the kids. They aren't arresting white students, like is happening in schools with predominantly school populations with color. And so white parents and whites and principals of white schools and superintendents in these largely white school districts are frankly at times furious with legislation like the bill that I introduced because they just can't understand why anyone would have a problem with a school resource officer. 

“Move to the conversation that's happening in our urban school districts, in our school districts of color where the perception is not that these police officers are out there to protect the kids, the perception is that those police officers are out to target the kids or to hassle them about getting information about some incident that happened on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon in their neighborhood. In these districts parents of color and students of color are desperately asking for these school resource officers to be pulled back in order to make those neighborhoods and those schools truly safe.

“We have alternatives. Right now, as I'm sure you'll talk about, big school districts like Denver and Minneapolis are ending their contracts with school police departments. I don't argue they shouldn't have security in schools. You should. I just don't think there's any reason to have a security officer with a gun and the power of arrest. 

“And so I'm really excited about helping to lead a conversation that ultimately leads to reform. Not just reform in terms of the different kind of security that we put in schools, but also reform that understands that the way you really build a safe learning environment is by building a positive school, a school that doesn't just render consequences on negative behaviors, but incentivizes and rewards positive behaviors.

“And this opportunity, brought to us by the civil rights protests of the summer and I hope, by this legislation, will stimulate a conversation all around the country about the kind of alternatives that you're going to discuss today. So, Tom, thank you for having me. Sandra, thank you for leading this panel, and I look forward to working with all of you as the rest of the year and the beginning of 2021 arrives.”

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