#state law enforcement

[santaclaralocalnews]

After a mystifying delay, on Monday the City of Santa Clara finally released a June 2021 report about an investigation of former police officers Brian Gilbert and Phil Cooke. The pair were convicted in a cyberstalking and harassment conspiracy that included a plan to enlist a Santa Clara Police Department (SCPD)...Read more at svvoice.com

[reasonsforhope]

"Research on a police diversion program implemented in 2014 shows a striking 91% reduction in in-school arrests over less than 10 years.

Across the United States, arrest rates for young people under age 18 have been declining for decades. However, the proportion of youth arrests associated with school incidents has increased.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, K–12 schools referred nearly 230,000 students to law enforcement during the school year that began in 2017. These referrals and the 54,321 reported school-based arrests that same year were mostly for minor misbehavior like marijuana possession, as opposed to more serious offenses like bringing a gun to school.

School-based arrests are one part of the school-to-prison pipeline, through which students—especially Black and Latine students and those with disabilities—are pushed out of their schools and into the legal system.

Getting caught up in the legal system has been linked to negative health, social, and academic outcomes, as well as increased risk for future arrest.

Given these negative consequences, public agencies in states like Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania have looked for ways to arrest fewer young people in schools. Philadelphia, in particular, has pioneered a successful effort to divert youth from the legal system.

Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program

In Philadelphia, police department leaders recognized that the city’s school district was its largest source of referrals for youth arrests. To address this issue, then–Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel developed and implemented a school-based, pre-arrest diversion initiative in partnership with the school district and the city’s department of human services. The program is called the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program, and it officially launched in May 2014.

Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker named Bethel as her new police commissioner on Nov. 22, 2023.

Since the diversion program began, when police are called to schools in the city for offenses like marijuana possession or disorderly conduct, they cannot arrest the student involved if that student has no pending court case or history of adjudication. In juvenile court, an adjudication is similar to a conviction in criminal court.

Instead of being arrested, the diverted student remains in school, and school personnel decide how to respond to their behavior. For example, they might speak with the student, schedule a meeting with a parent, or suspend the student.

A social worker from the city also contacts the student’s family to arrange a home visit, where they assess youth and family needs. Then, the social worker makes referrals to no-cost community-based services. The student and their family choose whether to attend.

Our team—the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab at Drexel University—evaluated the effectiveness of the diversion program as independent researchers not affiliated with the police department or school district. We published four research articles describing various ways the diversion program affected students, schools, and costs to the city.

Arrests Dropped

In our evaluation of the diversion program’s first five years, we reported that the annual number of school-based arrests in Philadelphia decreased by 84%: from nearly 1,600 in the school year beginning in 2013 to just 251 arrests in the school year beginning in 2018.

Since then, school district data indicates the annual number of school-based arrests in Philadelphia has continued to decline—dropping to just 147 arrests in the school year that began in 2022. That’s a 91% reduction from the year before the program started.

We also investigated the number of serious behavioral incidents recorded in the school district in the program’s first five years. Those fell as well, suggesting that the diversion program effectively reduced school-based arrests without compromising school safety.

Additionally, data showed that city social workers successfully contacted the families of 74% of students diverted through the program during its first five years. Nearly 90% of these families accepted at least one referral to community-based programming, which includes services like academic support, job skill development, and behavioral health counseling...

Long-Term Outcomes

To evaluate a longer follow-up period, we compared the 427 students diverted in the program’s first year to the group of 531 students arrested before the program began. Results showed arrested students were significantly more likely to be arrested again in the following five years...

Finally, a cost-benefit analysis revealed that the program saves taxpayers millions of dollars.

Based on its success in Philadelphia, several other cities and counties across Pennsylvania have begun replicating the Police School Diversion Program. These efforts could further contribute to a nationwide movement to safely keep kids in their communities and out of the legal system."

-via Yes! Magazine, December 5, 2023

[my-midlife-crisis]

Trump and his police force during a BLM protest. He called you terrorists.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Expect this everywhere, everyday, and much worse if Trump gets elected and implements Project 2025.

When armed white supremacist militias stop you and demand to see your papers you’ll wish you had gotten your ass off the couch to vote for Biden.

[alwaysbewoke]

[nando161mando]

We are living in a police state

[theblackdog552]

Attention proshippers and antis its actually not illegal to ship minors with adults, technically its only illegal to draw minors in quote en quote, “obscene” ways (and even then the line is very vague on what obscene actually is.) theres actually no limitations of writing fic of minors in the united states.

A lot of people who were arrested for owning explicit drawings of fictional minors were also connected to real life exploitation of minors, which is why they were arrested in the first place. The fictional stuff came second is most cases.

So go write that fanfic, draw that age gap art, and go enjoy your problematic ships! legally theres nothing stopping you. :)

[defleftist]

I could be normal or I could go on long rants about why the police and the entire police system are evil and corrupt in a manner that scares normies. Guess which one I am?

[uncanny-tranny]

Honestly, the whole "[x] group can't be oppressed! Name one right they don't have!!!" because it's such a narrow-minded, State-enforced look at oppression and group struggle.

When you talk to a marginalized group, often they might bring up that there are laws that hinder their movement through life, but a ton of discussions won't surround the law - they might talk about how they are refused equal opportunities, or are medicalized, or treated like a problem to be solved. When you focus so heavily on the State, you are neglecting that enforcers of oppression or oppressive dynamics will not be the people with the highest power of the land.

Despite there (in theory) being equal rights, that by no means means that it is correct to surmise that no group of people aren't oppressed or marginalized. Just because there isn't a law in place that says, "discriminate against this group!" doesn't mean that they are granted the same opportunities or ways of life you might have.

[news4dzhozhar]

[doctorjackdaw]

my bitchy park ranger desolation dad, Vernon (and his sexy boss) original sketch under the cut vv

when you're way WAYYYY to pregnant to be on patrol and your boss knows it and wants to knock some sense into your bullheaded ass

[the-lady-maddy]

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[my-midlife-crisis]

[betweenthings2]

You know what's absolutely fucking wild to me? The fact that Alex Turner/Arctic Monkeys/The Last Shadow Puppets are allegedly banned from Coachella because of the time Alex kissed Miles on stage, but The 1975 isn't. Matty Healy/The 1975 are banned from two whole countries and facing legal charges in one for being pro-LGBT+, but not from one homophobic American festival, and Alex Turner, who I've never seen say two fucking words about politics is.