Arlington Can Be a Leader in Racial Justice Reform Once More
When I was a junior in high school, my AP Lit teacher convinced me to enter a local writing contest sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society. That year I had transformed my shitty teenage writing skills into something that my mom, a former journalist turned reading teacher, could read without a sense of deep disappointment.
I published the original essay, unedited, to Medium here. The prompt was this:
Was Arlington County Heroic or Quixotic in its attempts to integrate schools in the 1950s?
I argued that Arlington was heroic. The citizens of my county fought for justice, and as a result Arlington became the first county to integrate schools in all of Virginia. Arlington was ahead of the trend. I was, and still am, proud to be an Arlingtonian. Recently, however, the nefarious side of that pride has been revealed by the realization that our county still has tremendous work to do. We have another opportunity for change here: removing the police force from our school system to prevent black students from being disproportionately labeled as criminals for mistakes that all adolescents make.
I won the essay contest. I shook hands with (exclusively) a lot of old white guys, and felt virtuous for writing about civil rights and equality. But when I look back at my small victory in that writing contest, I see a naive teenager. While I was putting the finishing touches on my essay, Dontre Hamilton (31 years old) was murdered by police in Milwaukee. And just about the time when my prize money came in the mail, Eric Garner (43) was murdered in New York. Shortly after Garner, came Michael Brown (18), and then Ezell Ford (25). Dante Parker (36). Tanisha Anderson (37). Akai Gurley (28). Tamir Rice (12). And then countless others, in a string of senseless brutality that has prevailed for hundreds of years before then, and continues to exist today. Six years later, none of the officers who snuffed the life out of these people have been charged. I doubt that any of them ever will.
None of these murders happened in Arlington. I hope that an event like this couldn’t happen here. We are a community that is liberal, too in tune with the injustice and inequality in the world. Perhaps. Right?
Maybe not. Back in 2017, the APS school board unanimously approved a redistricting plan that further segregated our schools. Despite a rather damning open letter and a widely supported petition, both spearheaded by WL alumni Matthew Herrity, Arlington insisted on taking a step in the wrong direction, furthering the wealth gap between our high schools. Although the history of racial inequality in Arlington is complex, Arlingtonians have led by example in the past, taking brave steps to integrate schools. What does leading by example look like now?
A good start would be removing the Arlington County Police Department presence (ACPD) from our schools immediately and definitively, a presence that disproportionately labels black students as criminals. We need to end student arrests and referrals to law enforcement for common adolescent behavior. Students fuck up, a consistent fact of life that spares none of us. Raise your hand if you did something illegal during high school. Arlington Public Schools (APS) even acknowledges that teenagers have a high propensity to engage in illegal and/or stupid behavior: Second Chance, a program that that clears teenager records of misdemeanors, says at the top of their website that,
Before they graduate from high school, 76% of Arlington teens will have tried alcohol at one time or another. Almost half will have used marijuana…
…Traditional punishment sends the behavior underground. Suspensions and court involvement leave well-meaning friends, coaches, teachers and parents without a positive alternative for helping students they worry about. The long-term consequences of many traditional forms of punishment keep some from finding interventions that can help.
As a County we recognize teenage behavior isn’t always the wisest, yet through our partnerships with ACPD we criminalize behavior that the majority of teens participate in. These punishments disproportionately affect the futures of people of color: Second Chance is 40% caucasian and only 14% black, yet black students make up approximately 45% of school referrals while white students make up 38% of referrals. Although some inequalities can be explained by Second Chance being an “opt-in” program, APS needs to ask itself why such a discrepancy exists. Second Chance is less available to black students, yet these are the students who need it most: in 2019, a juvenile arrest was 50% more likely to be black than white, despite Arlington County being 66% white and only 8% black.
The ACLU defines the “school-to-prison pipeline” as the national trend where children, often times with learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, are funneled out of public schools and into the criminal ‘justice’ systems rather than being supplied additional educational and counseling services. By marrying our schools discipline system with law enforcement, Arlington County is participating in a disturbing national trend that disproportionately damages our black communities.
Students put into the school-to-prison pipeline later face disheartening rates of school dropout, second arrests, and involvement with law enforcement for the remainder of their lives. What is the purpose of indoctrinating adolescent ‘criminals’ into our warped concept of a criminal ‘justice’ system? But adolescent crime is an indication that a student needs support, not that they are inherently criminals.
After all, adolescent crime is not predictive of recidivistic, adult crime — only 16–19% of adolescent criminals continue leading a criminal lifestyle past age 25. Secondly, studies have concluded that the leading childhood predictors of adult crime are socioeconomic — being predisposed towards crime is rarely the fault of the individual. So, although a correlation exists between adolescent crime and adult crime, this correlation can be disrupted by providing adolescent ‘criminals’ alternative pathways for reform, rather than initiating a criminal record. In other words, adolescent POC should be allowed to make mistakes just as their white peers do, without writing them off as criminals.
Arlington’s Second Chance program is one example of a Juvenile Diversion Program (JDP), an umbrella term for programs that emphasize keeping adolescent offenders out of the justice system while still holding them accountable for their actions. One JDP implementation by Michigan State University found significant results: enrolling in a JDP decreased recidivism rates from 32% to 22%, while adolescents who went through the normal criminal processing system had higher recidivism rates at 34%. Individuals that go through the criminal legal system are more likely to reoffend than any other group. On top of the human benefits, a literature review of JDP found that these programs save governments significant amounts of money on court processing and juvenile detention centers.
Removing the ACPD from Arlington Schools lessens the odds that an adolescent will drown in the ‘justice’ system. It also opens the door for creating or expanding more programs like Second Chance, that prevent irreparable damage to a student’s future for just one mistake. Black communities will be greatly benefitted, the government will save money, and all our communities will be safer with fewer criminals. The benefits are threefold and the consequences are nil. This should be a simple decision. Yet, the proposed budget for 2020 included a $50,000 reduction in funds for Second Chance (for reference, the cost of our SRO program is at least $1.6m).
Once more, Arlingtonians must be the drivers for change. Contact the School Board. Demand change like lives depend on it, because they do. As we proved in the 1950s, change comes not from the government, but from its people. History is watching. Which side will we be on?
Footnotes / Next Steps:
How can you help make a difference? A great first start is to read and sign this petition started by Natalie Volk, WL Class of 2015, that thoroughly outlines how and why SROs can be replaced with more beneficial programs. And if you’re in another county, work with those around you to start your own petition.
For more steps, please see this document.
I would like to emphasize that removing SROs and funding more JDPs is just a first step. This is the bare minimum, an action that is all positives and no negatives. The next step is defunding (No, that doesn’t mean abolishing, just divestiture of funds) the ACPD and reinvesting that money to our communities who need it most. For one of the richest and most liberal counties in the U.S., we have atrocious income inequality and intrinsic segregation of our populace. Yes, Arlington is great. We could be so much worse. But more importantly, we could be much, much better.
More information on SROs vs Second Chance: While browsing the APS budget for 2020 to find the cost of school resource officers and police in schools, I found a $50,000 decrease in funding for the Second Chance program, despite continued funding for the 16 School Resource Officer positions. Link to budget here. I was not able to find the cost of 16 salaried individuals, but a safe estimate is upwards of $1.6m annually.
This time there was no cash prize! Thanks to Hunter Kolon and Elijah Kennedy for ideas and proofreading, and of course my mom for tearing the essay to shreds and helping me put it back together.
