Police Interactions with Special Needs Students Remain Problematic

An appalling video has come to light showing an eight-year-old Florida boy with special needs being arrested and placed in handcuffs. At the time of his arrest, the youngster weighed only 64 pounds and his wrists were so small, the handcuffs fell off. His parents have retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump in a case that is the tip of a massive iceberg highlighting a terrible truth — law enforcement and schools have an ingrained problem of treating children as “mini-adults.”

FBI statistics show that between 2013 and 2018 (the most recent year for which complete data is available), at least 30,467 children under the age of 10 were arrested in the United States. Children between the ages of 10 to 12 during the same time span were arrested 266,321 times. Stunningly, in 34 states, there is no minimum age for delinquency and 24 states have no minimum age to transfer juvenile cases to adult criminal court. Children as young as 6 years old have been arrested and fingerprinted. Many pre-schoolers and kindergartners are suspended and expelled.

Purportedly, if a student’s misconduct is caused by the disability or the school’s failure to provide appropriate services and supports for the disability, the student cannot be punished for the misconduct. The reality of the situation is a far cry from the lofty promise.

Special needs children are arrested and incarcerated at a much higher rate than their neurotypical peers. When children start garnering a rap sheet in early elementary school, stigmatization leads to diminished expectations and life outcomes are grim. Few graduate and many join the school to prison pipeline, often being referred to the corrections system directly from school.

There are school-related factors that make arrest for inappropriate, yet non-violent behaviors specifically symptomatic of the child’s disability:

• Inadequate training for educators in special education, especially training related to student behavior
• Zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools
• A dearth of school wide, positive behavior interventions and supports known to improve behavior.

Police average only 6 hours of training for their role when called to intervene at a school. They likely believe that the “scared straight” approach is valid and necessary and they are simply following protocols. This only punches up the fact that schools and police are in partnership in this traumatizing and tragic cycle.

This subject is one I know personally as my multiply-disabled son suffered in school and despite being exceptionally bright, ended up dropping out when he was a junior in high school. He is a young adult now and has never fully recovered his self esteem over being a high school drop-out, but the situation he was in was so dire, there was no other choice.

The few times he was successful in his educational journey were when he had perceptive and enlightened teachers who played to his strengths and allowed him a dedicated, cozy space to calm himself down when he had an anxiety attack and rejoin the class when he was ready.

It frustrates me that things are still so bad, frankly. We know what does and doesn’t work in dealing with special needs children. We know about best practices. We know teachers and administrators need to be trained so that IEPs are worth the paper they’re written on. Police need education in de-escalation and interacting constructively with disabled children. It isn’t rocket science, but does require dedication to change and that’s what seems most lacking. Those in positions of power and responsibility must open their hearts and minds to better ways of doing things in order to replace this punish the symptom syndrome with practices that are beneficial for all concerned.

With the pandemic, we’re in a whole new realm of the unknown. Some schools are reopening, others are online and others are a hybrid of both. America has never faced this kind of anxiety around the whole issue of schooling. Children are bound to be more stressed out and have less ability to self regulate. It’s time to be in close contact with your child’s IEP team and try to establish ground rules of how they should react if your child suffers a meltdown at school. Get it in writing.

The current focus on policing in America needs to cast a critical eye upon when it all begins, which sadly for far too many, is the first day of school.