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December 20, 2010

City Will Require Police to Report on School Arrests

By  Noah Rosenberg / New York Times


The New York City Council voted on Monday to require the Police and Education Departments to produce regular reports on arrests, summonses and suspensions of public school students, a victory for civil liberties advocates [including Make the Road New York] who say that the school police have sometimes been too aggressive in trying to keep order.

The measure, which was introduced in August 2008, was approved unanimously after compromises were made to satisfy the police and education officials.

A proposal to require the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which hears complaints about police abuse, to also handle complaints about school safety officers had been removed. Instead, 311 operators will transfer complaints to the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

Groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have complained for years that the school safety officers, who are members of the Police Department, as well as regular police officers tend to overreact, making arrests or writing summonses for infractions as minor as writing on a desk.

Due to federal restrictions on education data, arrests and summonses will be broken down by borough command, but not by school, and will be submitted to the Council quarterly.

Information on suspensions and student discipline will be available by school and will be issued by the Department of Education on a biannual and yearly basis, respectively. All data will be organized according to students’ age, grade, race, ethnicity, sex and any special education or English-language program enrollment, and will be available online.

The Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, praised the legislation for the “unprecedented information” it would provide. “This information will be a valuable new tool to help keep our children and our school employees safe,” she said.

The N.Y.C.L.U. hailed the legislation as “the most progressive bill of its kind.” The organization’s executive director, Donna Lieberman, said it would address the “monumental disconnect” that had surrounded school security since responsibilities were transferred to the police in 1998.

“The Student Safety Act is about shining a light on the impact of school safety practices in the schools, on the children, on education,” Ms. Lieberman said.

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said his agency had no objections to the revised bill, which he said had been “carefully negotiated.”

And the Department of Education said it was deeply committed to the underlying goal of the legislation. The measure takes effect in 90 days.

For the original article, please click here.


More on: Public Education 

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Victory for Immigrant Families: Preventing Unjust Deportations in NYC

On March 18, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg signed new legislation to stop federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using NYC’s criminal justice system to deport thousands of New Yorkers.

Building on legislation we helped to win just over a year ago, Local Laws 21 and 22 prohibit not only the Department of Correction but now also the NYPD from spending millions of city taxpayer dollars to hold individuals on behalf of ICE agents for detention and deportation. Each year, thousands of New York families will stay together who would otherwise have been torn apart by overly aggressive, indiscriminate immigration enforcement.

At a moment when the country is debating immigration reform, with these laws, New York City sends a clear message to Washington that tearing apart thousands of immigrant families is bad policy.

With your support, we look forward to winning national reform that keeps families together. We thank our partners at the Center for Popular Democracy, the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic and the bills’ sponsors, NYC Council Speaker Quinn and Council Member Mark-Viverito, for their courageous leadership.


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