Fourteen-year old Kaleb Winston was wearing a "graffiti-patterned backpack" when the Salt Lake City police's gang unit rounded him and more than a dozen other students up one December school day in 2010. The bi-racial freshman, who at the time held down jobs in the school cafeteria and as a basketball referee, was questioned and then photographed holding a sign reading: "My name is Kaleb Winston and I am a gang tagger." Found guilty of nothing, the students' personal information was nonetheless added to a "gang database."
The National Rifle Association's call to place armed police officers in schools nationwide in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut massacre has been derided as "revolting, tone-deaf" (Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy) and even a "completely dumbass idea" (Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter). It is all of those things. But what most reports neglect to mention is the fact that armed police are already present in many schools.
"I agree that the NRA's suggestion is absurd" says Aaron Kupchik, a University of Delaware sociologist whose 2010 book Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear examines the now-commonplace presence of armed police in schools nationwide. "The public is missing the point that we've already made schools more into police zones over the past 20 years."
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