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Weisburst on Effect of School Police Presence on Student Success

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Assistant Professor of Public Policy Emily Weisburst was featured in Christian Science Monitor and LAist articles about the changing role of police officers in schools. Nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd have prompted a rethinking of policing in schools as authorities debate how best to keep students safe and treat them fairly. “We are devoting a lot of resources to police in schools, and there can be protective benefits to that, potentially,” Weisburst explained. “But there are also really big potential costs that I think we need to be concerned about.” Weisburst’s research on the relationship between grants to fund police in schools and educational outcomes for students at those schools found statistically significant drops in the graduation rate and college enrollment rate for students at those schools. “When students are disciplined, their attachment to school decreases,” she said. “That can translate in the longer term to a lower likelihood of graduation.”

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Abrams Debunks Myths Surrounding Social Work

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Social Welfare Chair Laura Abrams co-authored an opinion piece in Witness LA debunking some of the myths surrounding the field of social work. Nationwide conversations about addressing police misconduct and racial discrimination have included a debate about the role of social workers. “Many people are talking and writing about social work with little understanding of what we actually do,” sometimes characterizing social workers as “callous and untrained child welfare investigators who are as racially insensitive as police officers,” wrote Abrams and co-author Kristen Brock-Petroshius, a Social Welfare doctoral student. Instead, they said, social work is “a profession that seeks to enhance human well-being through interventions with individuals, families, groups, organizations and policies.” They acknowledged social workers’ historical shortcomings, which have perpetuated racist policies and practices. Moving forward, they said, the profession must reshape training practices and heed its code of ethics to “forge a new vision of caring and safe communities.”

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Weisburst on Pinpointing the Source of Racial Disparities in Policing

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Assistant Professor of Public Policy Emily Weisburst co-authored an EconoFact article highlighting racial disparities in policing from an economics research perspective. Protests following the death of George Floyd have brought a new focus to racial disparities in U.S. policing. Economics research has historically sought to understand the role of police officer prejudice or bias in perpetuating the disparities. Newer studies have attempted to evaluate police use-of-force patterns and the effectiveness of reforms such as civilian oversight, de-escalation training and predictive analysis in hiring. Weisburst’s research looks at the extent to which disparity in treatment corresponds to widespread police behavior versus the actions of particular police officers. “Race disparities in policing reflect multiple potential sources of inequities and discrimination,” the authors wrote. They called for more research to pinpoint the source of the disparity and identify the most effective reforms.

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Police Presence in Schools Is Not Healthy, Astor Says

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Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor was featured in an EdSource article discussing the presence of police officers in public schools. Nationwide protests against police brutality following the killing of George Floyd have prompted a movement to rethink school safety and invest in hiring more counselors and other student support services instead of on-site police officers. “When schools instead invest in a heavy police presence, it can negatively impact school climate,” Astor explained. Police presence in schools has also been highlighted as the beginning of the “school-to-prison pipeline,” with Black and Latino students being arrested and disciplined at higher rates than their peers. “Militarizing and turning schools into things that look like prisons is not healthy for development. It’s not healthy for identity,” Astor concluded.

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Newton on Police Misconduct and Cultural Racism

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Public policy lecturer Jim Newton authored opinion articles in the Los Angeles Times and Politico dissecting the current debate on police brutality and misconduct. Newton recalled the L.A. riots in 1992, where “more than a dozen officers watched as other officers beat [Rodney] King into submission — a brutal attack that was overseen and directed by a police sergeant.” Newton argued that King was “the victim of police misconduct, yes, but also of a debased and racist police culture.” Similarly, he wrote that “when a Minneapolis police officer jams his knee into the neck of a Black man suspected of passing a phony $20 bill, that suggests misconduct; when three of his fellow officers stand by for more than eight minutes while the suspect pleads for help, that points to a cultural problem.” While some acts of police misconduct may be the work of a stray, misguided officer, Newton concluded that “one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.”

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Read the Politico op-ed

Lens on Disentangling Police Services

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Atlantic about the real meaning of “defunding the police.” In addition to dealing with violent crime, many officers are responsible for handling traffic accidents and low-level arrests. Modern policing often involves interacting with people showing signs of mental illness or alcoholism, but the article noted that officers are under-trained to intervene in these cases. Police also serve as “front-line workers for urban homelessness,” Lens explained. “A person who is unhoused interacts constantly with the police, but officers aren’t adequately trained to deal with the issues that those people are dealing with.” The article recommended that cities spend money on homelessness directly, instead of making police responsible for homelessness intervention in addition to other services. Programs in Eugene, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, have “unbundled” police services, instead dispatching medics and mental health counselors to homeless people or others in distress.

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Yaroslavsky Sees Tectonic Shift in Los Angeles History

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In a Los Angeles Times article, Los Angeles Initiative Director Zev Yaroslavsky weighed in on Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to redistribute funding from police to communities. After decades of efforts to expand the Los Angeles Police Department with the aim of making the city safer, the news proposal would direct $250 million from other city operations to youth jobs, health initiatives and “peace centers” to heal trauma, with as much as $150 million coming from the LAPD. The proposal comes in response to widespread demands that the government provide poor and minority communities with more than a police presence following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. “If you look at the arc of the city’s history for three decades, there is a tectonic shift here with this growing constituency for reform,” Yaroslavsky said. “There is the emergence of this multiracial coalition of people, who have formed a powerful constituency, and they are making their voices heard.”

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Yaroslavsky on ‘Mind-Boggling’ Use of Police Chokehold

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Institute at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Fox 11 News about police use of force in the case of George Floyd, who died in custody in Minneapolis. Images of a white police officer with his knee pressed against Floyd’s neck for several minutes as the unarmed black man pleaded for help have ignited protests around the country. “There is no excuse whatsoever. There is no chief of police who could defend engaging in that kind of physical restraint when somebody is already handcuffed and submissive,” Yaroslavsky said. In his years as a Los Angeles City Council member, Yaroslavsky was outspoken in his criticism of police use of chokeholds. The tactic was banned in Los Angeles in 1982 except in circumstances that call for deadly force. “Nearly 40 years ago, we ended that chokehold, and it’s just mind-boggling to me that law enforcement agencies across the country still use it,” Yaroslavsky said.

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Leap on Police Role in Enforcement of Social Distancing

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap spoke to NBC News about accusations that police have targeted minorities more than white protesters for social distancing violations. For example, demonstrators outside the Otay Mesa Detention Facility on April 11, who were protesting conditions faced by detained immigrants, received citations for violating stay-at-home orders and “unlawful use of horn.” However, no citations or arrests were reported at predominantly white beach protests a week later in Encinitas and San Diego. Authorities in San Diego and Los Angeles have enforced stay-at-home orders by issuing a few citations to protest organizers after the agencies were criticized for allegedly unequal enforcement, the report said. According to Leap, the LAPD has shown restraint in its enforcement of social distancing regulations. “The community itself is enforcing stay-at-home,” she said. “The LAPD, thankfully, they have been working with communities, especially communities of color.”

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Leap Weighs In on CalGang Reform Process

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the current debate surrounding the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of CalGang, a secretive statewide database with information about suspected gang members, including their family members, nicknames and tattoos. Since only approved law enforcement has access to the database, it has been nearly impossible for those outside of law enforcement to gauge the integrity of the process or check the accuracy of its records. At least 20 LAPD officers are suspected of falsifying information used to identify gang members, putting additional pressure on the state Department of Justice to reform the system to prevent law enforcement from unfairly targeting people by race and economic status. Leap said the LAPD investigation “is the booster rocket to say this has got to be reformed and it’s got to be reformed not in a superficial way but in a meaningful way.”

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