Study finds Virginia leads nation in referring students to police

By Ellen Wulfhorst (Reuters) - Virginia leads the nation in the number of students it sends to police, and nationwide special needs and black children are disproportionately affected, a study released on Friday showed. Virginia followed by Delaware and Florida, sent students to law enforcement at nearly three times the national rate, according to the study by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based non-profit investigative news organization. Special needs students make up 14 percent of U.S. school enrollment but account for 26 percent of students referred to law enforcement, it said. Black students are 16 percent of enrollment but 27 percent of those referred to police, it said. "The findings raise questions about what kind of incidents at school really merit police or court intervention," the Center said on its website. "Certain schools continue to allow police who patrol their hallways to serve as de facto disciplinarians, with arrest powers, for all manner of indiscretions that a generation ago would almost certainly have been handled by teachers or principals," it said. Along with analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education, the study highlighted the case of an autistic sixth grader in Lynchburg, Virginia. The boy, age 11, was charged with disorderly conduct by a police officer at his school for kicking over a trash can and then with felony assault on a police officer when he tried to break free from an officer who grabbed him. A juvenile court judge found him guilty of the charges earlier this month. The study said in Virginia, some schools with the highest rates of referral to law enforcement were middle schools with students ages 11 to 14. At one middle school the referral rate was 228 per 1,000 students, it said. The study shows "an overreliance on law enforcement and harsh discipline policies that too often criminalize students for minor offenses," said a statement issued by the JustChildren Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center, which serves low-income families in central Virginia. It called for a uniform policy on the roles of police in schools and training of those officers and also for public discussion of the issue. "Schools should promote learning rather than funnel kids to prison," it said. "School discipline policies and practices must not rely on police officer involvement as a quick fix, but as a last resort and in cases of true emergency." (Editing by Steve Orlofsky)