and another
In 2003 a high school in South Carolina was raided by armed police officers with a drug-sniffing dog. The raid was prompted because of a concern over drug-dealing on school grounds. The principal of the school planned a surprise raid along with the police, the police hid in stairwells and utility closets and surprised students who arrived on the early buses to school. The images illustrate two things: the presence of police and the presence of surveillance in schools.
These images and the story behind them illustrate very dramatically the treatment of students as they enter a space which is supposed to serve them and educate them. These images illustrate what is often referred to as the "school to prison pipeline," showing the criminalization of high school students who are being handcuffed, searched, and held at gun point by police; as well the actual transformation of schools into prisons, the use of surveillance and the use of such excessive force on school grounds.
There is also a big racial profiling component to this incident. The population of the school was less than 25% black, but out of the 107 students caught up in the raid two thirds were black.
This is a single and dramatic example of the roles police, surveillance, and punishment play in schools and the way that they criminalize youth, this instance is also a testament to a racial bias that underlies the criminalization of youth.
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