Pre-Prison Diaries: December 11, 2009

Terezia Orosz

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In many high schools throughout Los Angeles the Adult School takes over campus at 3:30 pm. There are academic high school classes, computer classes, English as a Second Language classes and others. I teach World History to high school students who attend regular school all day, then come after school to make up credits they are missing. For the most part the atmosphere is much more relaxed than day school.

On the last day of our quarter we were playing games, celebrating students passing the class. One student stepped outside to answer a phone call from his mother. He was a quiet kid, sometimes slow to pick up on a joke, always ready to work hard. He left smiling, but when he came back into the room his face was flushed, he was sweating, and his eyes had an empty look. He came up to me and mumbled, "Sorry I took so long, the police searched me looking for a blunt." He wouldn't look at me, just stared down at the ground. When I asked him what had happened, he said he was talking to his mom when they came over and grabbed him. I didn't witness the incident, but I believe they had no cause or reason to search him.

The psychological impact of an incident like this is devastating. My student was overcome with shame. He refused to talk more about it or write it down because he said he didn't want to feel bad about it. Over half of my students have been handcuffed at some point. It is standard practice of school police to handcuff students while giving them a "truancy" ticket. Our children are being handcuffed for being late to school! It is a physical trauma used to teach them that they are powerless and they are "criminals." One student was handcuffed and dragged to the office during our class break for not wearing a helmet while skateboarding. The students came back to class yelling, "Pedro got arrested, Pedro got arrested!" Apparently he did not respond quickly enough with his name and personal information when they asked for it. Another student told me about a time the police handcuffed him, sat him on the curb, and then flipped a coin over whether to give him a truancy ticket or not. He won the toss and they let him go. The message was, we can do whatever we want, play games with your future, physically hold you down if we feel like it, while you can do nothing.

This kind of humiliating treatment has no place in our schools. It is precisely this kind of treatment that contributes to the pushing out of so many Black and Brown youth, sending them towards the devastating cycle of our prison system. I am ready, as a teacher, to end the pre-prison conditions in my school and in LAUSD and to fight for a safe environment for our students that discards no one, and respects the human rights of all.

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