Report Says School Arrests on the Rise—For Northborough, Too?

According to a report by the Justice Police Institute, in-school police are arresting students at an "alarming rate."

"Kids are being arrested in schools for everything from playground skirmishes to talking back to teachers," said the report. JPI links the high number of school arrests to the increasing presence of police officers in public schools since the 1990s and the increasingly common practice of schools’ turning over responsibility of routine school discipline matters to police. 

“Massachusetts mirrors the national picture, unfortunately,” said Lael Chester, executive director of the Boston-based Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “Our research backs up what JPI found: If you put more cops in schools, more kids get arrested. We shouldn’t expect police to enforce school discipline any more than we’d expect a teacher to investigate crimes and arrest suspects. We should be asking public servants to do what their training and expertise best qualifies them to do.”

CfJJ and the American Civil Liberties Union plan to release a report on school-based arrests in Massachusetts in early 2012.

JPI’s national study points out that arrests have risen even as violence in schools has dipped to its lowest level since 1992, when the federal government first began tracking it, read the report.

According to Northborough Police Chief Mark Leahy and Superintendent of Schools Charles Gobron, arrests at Northborough public schools came in at a total of "none, really."

In the past five years, according to police, there have been two liquor law violations, six narcotics violations and two assaults. Six of these offenses occurred at sporting events after school, and four occurred during the school day.

"We enjoy a great rapport with our school administrators and work together with them on discipline problems," said Chief Leahy. "Arrest is always a last resort here."

How safe do you feel Northborough schools are? Do you think public schools, in general, now "overdo it" by using police intervention when there is an issue at the school? Where do you draw the lines between school administration, parental discipline and police arrests?