(Guest post by Greg Forster)
RealClearInvestigations carries a well reported and persuasive article by Paul Sperry documenting how Broward County has for years been among the most enthusiastic adopters of initiatives to stop the “school to prison pipeline” by . . . not arresting students when they commit crimes.
A surer way to make sure a kid stays in the pipeline to prison would be harder to imagine.
“If you commit crimes, there will be no consequences.” Yes, that’s exactly the lesson we want to teach at-risk youth. That’s going to work out just great for them in the long run.
Not to mention everyone else. The failure of police to take any action against the kid who went on to become the mass shooter, even as he committed crime after crime after crime and was never arrested – so he had a clean record when the time came – suddenly makes much more sense in this light.
What we need to look into now is the extent to which the whole system of having police officers assigned to schools has been subverted to serve purposes other than school safety. The more comes to light about the Broward Coward, Scot Peterson, the more it looks like being a school officer is something other than a legit police assignment. Is it merely a cushy job for lousy cops who want to draw a salary for no real work, which would be bad enough? Or is something more sinister going on – is there an organized system for placing officers in schools who know that they’re not supposed to make arrests?
Why did Peterson refuse to share information with a Department of Children and Families investigator about an incident involving the kid who went on to become the shooter? Is it normal for a cop to withhold information from investigators?
It is when they have something to hide.
HT David French
Jay P. Greene's Blog 