What's next? There was a time in our nation's history when such an accounting of facts would have sparked immediate outrage. However, having bought into the idea that anything the government says and does is right, even when it is so clearly wrong, many Americans through their own compliance have become unwitting accomplices in the government's efforts to prosecute otherwise law-abiding citizens for unknowingly violating some statute in its vast trove of laws written by bureaucrats who operate above the law. Yet as author Nathan Burney so adeptly points out, "when crimes are too numerous to count... when you're punished, not because what you did was wrong, but simply because the law says so... when laws are too vague or overbroad... that's not justice."552
CHAPTER 24
The Criminalization of America's Schoolchildren
"[P]ublic school reform is now justified in the dehumanizing language of national security, which increasingly legitimates the transformation of schools into adjuncts of the surveillance and police state ... students are increasingly subjected to disciplinary apparatuses which limit their capacity for critical thinking, mold them into consumers, test them into submission, strip them of any sense of social responsibility and convince large numbers of poor minority students that they are better off under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system than by being valued members of the public schools."553-PROFESSOR HENRY GIROUX
For those hoping to better understand how and why we arrived at this dismal point in our nation's history, where individual freedoms, privacy, and human dignity have been sacrificed to the gods of security, expediency, and corpocracy look no farther than America's public schools.
Once looked to as the starting place for imparting principles of freedom to future generations, America's classrooms are becoming little more than breeding grounds for compliant citizens. In fact, as director Cevin Soling documents in his insightful, award-winning documentary The War on Kids,554 the moment young people walk into school, they increasingly find themselves under constant surveillance: they are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, x-rayed, sniffed, and snooped on. Between metal detectors at the entrances, drug-sniffing dogs in the hallways, and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, many of America's schools look more like prisons than learning facilities.
Add to this the epidemic of arresting schoolchildren and treating them as if they are dangerous criminals, and you have the makings of a perfect citizenry for the Orwellian society–one that can be easily cowed, controlled, and directed. In fact, what once was looked upon as classically childish behavior such as getting into food fights, playing tag, doodling, hugging, kicking, and throwing temper tantrums is now criminalized.
Arrested Development
Whereas in the past minor behavioral infractions at school such as shooting spitwads may have warranted a trip to the principal's office, in-school detention, or a phone call to one's parents, today they are elevated to the level of criminal behavior with all that implies. Consequently, young people are now being forcibly removed by police officers from the classroom, arrested, handcuffed, transported in the back of police squad cars, and placed in police holding cells until their frantic parents can get them out. For those unlucky enough to be targeted for such punishment, the experience will stay with them long after they are allowed back at school. In fact, it will stay with them for the rest of their lives in the form of a criminal record.
For example, in November 2011, a 14-year-old student in Brevard County, Florida, was suspended for hugging a female friend, an act which even the principal acknowledged as innocent.555 A 9-year-old in Charlotte, North Carolina, was suspended for sexual harassment after a substitute teacher overheard the child tell another student that the teacher was "cute."556 A 6-year-old in Georgia was arrested, handcuffed, and suspended for the remainder of the school year after throwing a temper tantrum in class.557 A 6-year-old boy in San Francisco was accused of sexual assault following a game of tag on the playground.558 A 6-year-old in Indiana was arrested, handcuffed, and charged with battery after kicking a school principal.559
Twelve-year-old Alexa Gonzalez was arrested and handcuffed for doodling on a desk.560 Another student was expelled for speaking on a cell phone with his mother, to whom he hadn't spoken in a month because she was in Iraq on a military deployment.561 Four high school students in Detroit were arrested and handcuffed for participating in a food fight and charged with a misdemeanor with the potential for a ninety-day jail sentence and a $500 fine.562 A high school student in Indiana was expelled after sending a profanity-laced tweet through his Twitter account after school hours. The school had been conducting their own surveillance by tracking the tweeting habits of all students.563
Teens Suspended, Arrested After Food Fight (WXYZ)
The Lockdown in America's Public Schools
These are not isolated incidents. In 2010 some 300,000 Texas schoolchildren received misdemeanor tickets from police officials. One 12-year-old Texas girl had the police called on her after she sprayed perfume on herself during class.564 In Albuquerque, New Mexico, over 90,000 kids were entered into the criminal justice system during the 2009-2010 school year, and over 500 of those were arrested at school.565
It is hard to believe that such things–children being handcuffed and carted off to jail for minor incidents–could take place in a so-called "free" country. However, since the introduction of police, high-tech surveillance systems, and zero tolerance policies into the schools, this is the reality with which nearly 50 million students in America's elementary and secondary public schools must contend. Many of these "say no to drugs/say no to violence"-type policies gained favor after the Columbine school shootings in 1999 and have continued to be adopted by school districts across the country. This, even in the wake of research indicating that zero tolerance neither makes schools safer nor discourages violence. "Ironically, the [Columbine] tragedy occurred as rates of school violence in general and shootings in particular were declining," writes author Annette Fuentes in Lockdown High.566
Zero Tolerance
Zero tolerance policies, the driving force behind the criminalization of schoolchildren, punish all offenses severely–no matter how minor. Disproportionately levied against minority students and students with emotional and behavioral disabilities,567 these one-size-fits-all disciplinary procedures mandate suspension or expulsion for students who violate the rules, regardless of the student's intent or the nature of the violation.
Zero tolerance rules in many states also cover fighting, drug or alcohol use, and gang activity, as well as relatively minor offenses such as possessing over-the-counter medications and disrespect of authority. Nearly all American public schools have zero tolerance policies for firearms or other "weapons," and most have such policies for drugs and alcohol. In the wake of the Columbine school shootings, legislators and school boards further tightened their zero tolerance policies, creating what some critics call a national intolerance for childish behavior. As a result, these policies are now interpreted so broadly as to crack down on spit wads, Tweetie Bird key chains, and Certs breath mints–all of which constitute contraband of one kind or another. In some jurisdictions, carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, or dying your hair blue are expellable offenses.
Other examples: In May 2012 at Deltona High School in Florida, 17-year-old Michael Rudi had his inhaler taken from him by school officials during a search of his locker. Even though the inhaler was in its original packaging, complete with his name and directions for use, school officials decided to confiscate it because his mother had not signed "the proper form" allowing him to carry it. At some point, Michael began having trouble breathing, so school officials called his mother, Sue, but refused to give Michael his inhaler. Sue rushed to the school where she was taken to the nurse's office. The door was locked, and upon entering, they found the nurse numbly looking on as Michael lay on the ground, suffering a full-blown asthma attack. Michael claims that as he began passing out, the nurse locked the door. "It's like someth
ing out of a horror film. The person just sits there and watches you die," he said. "She sat there, looked at me and she did nothing." Officials with the Volusia County school district have stood by the nurse's decision.568
In September 2012, 8-year-old Konnor Vanatta was prevented from wearing his replica Denver Broncos football jersey with PeytonManning's number 18 on it because school officials claimed that the number 18 is associated with a local gang, the 18th street gang. Other numbers banned for gang associations are 13 and 14, as well as the reverse of all three, 81,31, and 41. Pam Vanatta, Konnor's mother, pointed out the absurdity of the situation saying, "When they are counting and when they're learning their numbers, are they going to make them skip 14,13,41,81,18 when they are counting? It's getting ridiculous."569
In December 2011,10-year-old Nicholas Taylor was severely disciplined for jokingly aiming a piece of pizza shaped like a gun at his classmates during lunch. For this childish behavior, Nicholas was relegated to the "silent" table for the rest of the semester, forced to meet with a school resource officer about gun safety, and threatened with suspension for any future infractions.570
A deaf 3-year-old preschooler in Nebraska was singled out by school administrators because one of the letters in his name, when signed, appeared to some as a gun being drawn in the air. Rather than letting him sign his name, a spokesman for the school district says they are "working with the parents to come to the best solution we can for the child."571
A high school valedictorian, heading to Oklahoma University on full scholarship, was denied her diploma because during her graduation speech, she said the word "hell." The school demanded that Kaitlin Nootbaar write them a formal apology in order to receive her diploma, which she refused to do.572
While expulsion and suspension used to be the worst punishment to be rendered against a child who had run afoul of the system, school officials have now upped the ante by routinely bringing the police into the picture. As Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, notes, "Media hysteria really created this groundswell of support for zero tolerance and folks being scared that it could happen at their school. Now, we have police officers in every school. He's not there to be law enforcement. He's there to lock up kids."573
Tracking Students
Increasing numbers of schools have even gone so far as to require students to drape Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags around their necks, which allow school officials to track every single step students take. So small that they are barely detectable to the human eye, RFID tags produce a radio signal by which the wearer's precise movements can be constantly monitored. For example, some 4,200 students at Jay High School and Jones Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, are convenient guinea pigs for the Student Locator Project, which required students to carry "smart" ID cards embedded with an RFID tracking chip.574 Although these schools already boast 290 surveillance cameras,575 the Northside School District ID program gave school officials the ability to track students' whereabouts at all times. School officials plan to expand the program to the district's 112 schools, with a student population of 100,000.576 Students who refuse to take part in the ID program won't be able to access essential services like the cafeteria and library, nor will they be able to purchase tickets to extracurricular activities.577
Unfortunately, RFID tracking is actually the least invasive surveillance tactic being used in schools today. Chronically absent middle schoolers in Anaheim, California, for example, have been enrolled in a GPS tracking program. Journalist David Rosen explains:
Each school day, the delinquent students get an automated 'wake-up' phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time. In addition, five times a day they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations: as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 pm. These students are also assigned an adult 'coach who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to school.578
Some schools in New York, New Jersey, and Missouri are tracking students labeled obese and overweight with wristwatches that record their heart rate, movement, and sleeping habits.579 Schools in San Antonio even have chips in their lunch food trays, which allow administrators to track the eating habits of students.580
Schools in Michigan's second largest school district broadcast student activity caught by CCTV cameras on the walls of the hallways in real time, to let the students know they're being watched.581 In 2003 a Tennessee middle school placed cameras in the school's locker rooms, capturing images of children changing before basketball practice. This practice was stuck down in 2008 by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that students have an expectation of privacy in locker rooms.582
Some school districts have gone so far as to not even mention to students and parents that they are electronically tracking children. In 2010 it was revealed that a Pennsylvania school district had given students laptops installed with software that allowed school administrators to track their behavior at home. This revelation led to the threat of a class-action lawsuit, which resulted in the school district settling with irate students and parents for $600,000.583
Passive, Conditionable Objects
To return to what I was saying about schools being breeding grounds for compliant citizens, if Americans have come to view freedom as expedient and expendable, it is only because that's what they've been taught in the schools by government leaders and by the corporations who run the show. As psychologist Bruce Levine has noted, "Behaviorism and consumerism, two ideologies which achieved tremendous power in the twentieth century, are cut from the same cloth. The shopper, the student, the worker, and the voter are all seen by consumerism and behaviorism the same way: passive, conditionable objects."584
More and more Americans are finding themselves institutionalized from cradle to grave, from government-run daycares and public schools to nursing homes. In between, they are fed a constant, mind-numbing diet of pablum consisting of entertainment news, mediocre leadership, and technological gadgetry, which keeps them sated, distracted, and unwilling to challenge the status quo. All the while, in the name of the greater good and in exchange for the phantom promise of security, the government strips away our rights one by one–monitoring our conversations, chilling our expression, searching our bodies and our possessions, doing away with our due process rights, reversing the burden of proof and rendering us suspects in a surveillance state.
Whether or not the powers-that-be, by their actions, are consciously attempting to create a compliant citizenry, the result is the same nevertheless for young and old alike. As journalist Hunter S. Thompson observed in Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in theFinalDays of the American Century:
Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear. Ho ho ho. Let's not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.585
CHAPTER 25
The Prison Industrial Complex
Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today–perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system –in prison, on probation, or on parole –than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America –more than six million –than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height."586
–Journalist ADAM GOPNIK
GEO Group Editorial Cartoon by Khalil Bendib
(Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.b
endib.com, all rights reserved.)
In an age when freedom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, the flawed yet retributive American "system of justice" is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency.
As author Adam Gopnik reports for the New Yorker:
[A] growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons. It's hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible.587
Jailing American for Profit
Consider this: despite the fact that violent crime in America has been on the decline,588 the nation's incarceration rate has tripled since 1980.589 Approximately 13 million people are introduced to American jails in any given year. Incredibly, more than 6 million people are under "correctional supervision" in America,590 meaning that one in fifty Americans are working their way through the prison system, either as inmates, or while on parole or probation. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of those being held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses591–namely, marijuana. Presently, one out of every one hundred Americans is serving time behind bars.592
A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State Page 18
