Larry Marx, CEO of The Children’s Agenda, a Rochester-based advocacy nonprofit, sat down with local media to discuss a recent report entitled Juvenile Use of Force: An Oversight Investigation. The report comes from the civilian-led Police Accountability Board (PAB) following their analysis of policies and data related to the use of force by the Rochester Police Department (RPD) against Rochester’s most vulnerable population: our children.  

The PAB defines juvenile use of force as “any intentional physical strength or energy exerted or brought to bear upon or against a person aged 17 or younger for compulsion, constraint, or restraint.” The PAB’s findings point to the alarmingly disproportionate use of force by RPD against young Black boys ages 2 to 17. Black children make up 80% of RPDs juvenile use of force incidents.  

The PAB further describes issues with the lack of clear guidance in RPD’s juvenile use of force policy. RPD officers are unclear on how to act in the presence of children, and they are unclear on what constitutes a mental health-related call. 30% of the juvenile use of force incidents investigated by the PAB involved a mental health crisis, so why were police called in the first place? 

It should be noted that the PAB’s findings come from whatever available data RPD was willing to release. When the PAB requested body-cam footage related to several of the incidents described in the report, RPD denied the request. Such barriers and delays to justice speak of a deep-rooted lack of accountability and transparency from police departments in cities across the country when confronted with cases of police misconduct and excessive use of force. Where is RPD’s sense of urgency? 

Tackling these systemic injustices must be rooted in the common goal to ensure that children are living, learning, playing, and growing up in safe conditions- and we need to be proactive and realistic about what role law enforcement is equipped to play in achieving that goal. This prompts us to question our own values and priorities as Rochesterians and how they are seen reflected in our policies; what justifies juvenile use of force in an interaction between police and a 2-year-old child? And are we okay with our police departments being run in such a manner that terms like “juvenile use of force” can even exist?   

Advocates at The Children’s Agenda have been fighting a similar fight, demanding that New York place clear limits on the use of out-of-school suspensions for young learners in our state. Schools are forcing children out of their learning environments as early as pre-kindergarten, instead of providing them with the support and resources they need to thrive. This phenomenon has been largely described as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” It has also been referred to as the “push-out effect” given the extent to which exclusionary discipline is enforced as a first response to normal youth behavior. 

Data analysis by The Children’s Agenda supports the conclusion that “suspension is a civil rights issue because we know suspensions are used far more often and for longer periods on children of color, children with disabilities, and children from low-income families. These differences are not explained by differences in student behavior, but likely are the result of individual and institutional biases.” In the public safety conversation, racist narratives show up in our communities as schools with prison-like environments and a culture of zero-tolerance in educational settings. However, the zero-tolerance approach, intended to make schools safer through federal law, was originally developed for drug enforcement during the peak of the racist war on drugs. For children across the country, the result has been states that inequitably fund schools, districts with inconsistent disciplinary proceedings, and teachers that have developed an over-reliance on exclusionary discipline. We cannot be okay with the existence of a school-to-prison pipeline. We need solutions, not suspensions.  

We must reimagine children’s health, safety, and education from an upstream approach- and we ought to be extremely clear about what that looks like for police reform in our city. Marx says, “The Children’s Agenda will continue to fight for policies, programs, and practices to eliminate force and violence as a response to children and youth behaviors. It does little but harm children – and it especially harms Black and brown children, where force is used in excess by all authorities, not just police, and too often used as a first response, not as the last.” 

Click here to see suspension data for the following NY school districts: Brighton, East Irondequoit, Gates Chili, Greece, Pittsford, Rochester, and West Irondequoit.  

Sushmitha Madaboosi is the Advocacy Coordinator at The Children’s Agenda.