A friend of mine asked, “How did schools deal with unruly students before electronic torture devices were invented?”  How indeed?  Usually through the application of communicative de-escalation techniques ranging from “verbal judo” (which cops used to rely on and, as far as I know, are supposed to still) to basic parenting skills, non-coercive punishment, and, if the student becomes physically violent or a danger to themselves, physically non-invasive restraint techniques.  Maybe some detention, a suspension, some extra homework, cleaning the erasers and desks… Any of that wring a bell?  Because that appears to be very passé in the current educational clime.

Now they apparently just have the cops zap the little bastard when he or she doesn’t listen.  At least, that’s what happened yesterday in Lakeland, Florida when a police officer assigned to a middle school campus used his Taser on a thirteen year old girl who was refusing to comply with instructions from the dean.  Now, this is very important: No matter how wrong the kid was – and she was very much in the wrong – she did not do a single thing to warrant the use of a Taser.  What that cop did was the equivalent of using a cattle prod to push an intransigent cow down the line.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, I, your humble guide, am in the unique situation to actually know what I’m talking about versus your garden-variety pundit or coercive parenting advocate: I’ve worked, briefly, on a cattle ranch and actually used cattle prods on stubborn steers.  For the past seven years, I’ve worked with cognitively disabled and emotionally unstable kids in schools and residential settings.  For the last five of those, I’ve trained other professionals on how to respond to “aggressive” behaviors.  Frequent readers of my work will no doubt be tired of my refrain here, but it bears repeating:  Non-compliance that endangers no-one is never an excuse for physical-coercion.

The use of police officers on campus is indicative of a darker turn in our parenting culture.  For a culture that claims to value independence, we spend an awful lot of time demanding obedience.  And make no mistake, using physical coercion on a “non-compliant” individual is not imposing discipline: it is a naked assertion of power, no more.  You’re not taking a child and teaching them how to regulate themselves; instead, you are removing any sense of agency they have.  Only two ends can result from that.  Either the child is broken and becomes obedient and cowed, or the child will continue to exhibit “problem” behaviors in order to assert some kind of personal control.  In either case, coercion has not resulted in an appropriate outcome.

There is a world of difference between “helping” a toddler or a quick swat on the rump to using a belt or a Taser on a child.  And make no mistake, an adolescent is still a child.  Their brain is not done developing.  Some research has found that adolescents exhibit brain patterns remarkably similar to those in people experiencing symptoms of diagnosable mental illnesses, such as psychotic breaks or hyper-mania.

A Taser sends approximately 50,000 volts through the body.  It is a less-than-lethal weapon designed to incapacitate an adult male assailant.  It causes involuntary loss of neuro-muscular control; both the passage of the electricity and the muscular contractions it causes are very painful.  If you or I were to use one on our child when they were being particularly disruptive or intransigent, we would be arrested – and quite rightly so.  For what reason, then, do we tacitly support the use of Tasers on children by police officers?

The use of physical coercion or restraints – and surely the Taser qualifies – is, in professional response methodologies, the tail-end of a hierarchy of interventions and subject to very specific criteria: is the child an immediate physical danger to him or herself or others?  If the answer to that question is “no,” then there is no justification for physical intervention.  Police officers are taught a very specific skill set for gaining immediate control of a situation.  Their goal is compliance, not discipline.  This might be fine for the streets – though I have my professional doubts about that, as well – but it is wildly inappropriate for the schools.

The use of police on campus has gone beyond having officers present to deter or respond to student-on-student violence or crimes.  They are now, increasingly, being used as alternatives to school disciplinarians. In one such incident, a client of mine – a 12 year old boy with autism – was removed from P.E. class by a police officer.  The officer handcuffed my client, lifted him by the arms (damaging his rotator cuffs in the process), and dragged him out of the gym.  His crime?  Refusing to leave class because he did not understand what he had done wrong.

During my year in graduate school working as a counselor at a high school on San Jose’s East Side, I found police officers valuable allies in responding to certain situations, such as threats of violence or searching for a suicidal teenage girl who ran off-campus.  In those cases, their immediate availability by having an officer on-campus was appropriate.  But their presence in what used to be routine discipline matters, is more often than not counter-productive: their skills are simply not developmentally or psychologically appropriate to dealing with children and adolescents, and, at least in the case of the San Jose Police Department and the school districts that use them, they have proven unwilling to provide or entertain any notion to the contrary, let alone be trained in more appropriate methods.