Fewer Eastern Iowa youth charged after changes made to police programs in schools

CEDAR RAPIDS — Changes made to the Cedar Rapids schools’ resource officer program — police in schools — is contributing to fewer children being charged with a crime in schools and decreasing the racial disparity of those complaints, according to data from the Iowa Department of Human Rights.

There has been a 49 percent reduction in complaints made in schools in the 6th Judicial District — Linn, Johnson, Tama, Benton, Jones and Iowa counties — since 2019. There also has been a reduction in racial disparity with Black students making up 33.9 percent of complaints, down from 53.9 percent in 2019.

A complaint is an official claim by law enforcement that initiates actions in juvenile court and can include more than one charge.

While the data still is disparate, it is trending in the right direction as school districts across the state “make structural changes to the way adults respond to student behaviors,” Jill Padgett, whose focus is on juvenile justice with the Iowa Department of Human Rights, said Friday while speaking at an event called “Suspended: Systemic Oppression in Our Schools Summit” held at the downtown Cedar Rapids Public Library.

The summit was presented by the African American Museum of Iowa and the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission. At the summit, speakers examined the role public schools play in funneling students in to the prison system and how zero-tolerance policies and student policing disproportionately impacts children of color.

Last year, the Cedar Rapids Community School District set a goal with the Cedar Rapids Police Department of reducing charges filed against district students by 50 percent or greater, and a 50 percent or greater reduction of the disproportional charges for Black students by the end of the 2021-22 school year.

While more Black students were still charged than white students, the district saw an overall decline in charges. During the 2018-2019 school year, there were 185 charges. For the same period during the 2021-22 school year, there were only 27 charges.

The district made an additional change to the program this year by removing school resource officers from patrolling Cedar Rapids middle schools. Officers are stationed at Kennedy, Washington, Jefferson and Metro high schools and Polk Alternative school.

Changes made to the Cedar Rapids’ school resource program were initiated by students — Raafa and Rhama Elsheikh — who graduated from Kennedy High School in 2021. The sisters advocated for the removal of police from schools, among other requests for how the district could better support students of color.

Lyric Sellers and Endi Montavlo-Martinez — two students who helped push to remove police from Des Moines Public Schools in 2021 — said students’ lived experiences are just as important as quantitative data.

Sellers and Montavlo-Martinez, who spoke at the summit Friday, collected data — findings through interviews and observations — as a part of their proposal to end police presence in schools.

Teachers and staff there felt like officers “escalated violence,” didn’t have the proper training to build healthy relationships with students and created mistrust between students and staff, Montavlo-Martinez said.

“Students should be at the core of every decision-making process,” Sellers said. When Des Moines Public school officials made a pledge to be anti-racist, “they have to stand by that and hear lived experiences of marginalized students,” she said.

Black youth disproportionately represented

Across Iowa, Black youths are disproportionately represented in the state’s juvenile justice system.

White youths make up almost 80 percent of Iowa’s youth population, while Black youths make up 6.8 percent, according to 2021 data from the Iowa Department of Human Rights.

Black youth, however, made up 26.3 percent of the complaints against youths in Iowa and white youths make up 61.1 percent in 2021, according to the data. About 22 percent of these complaints are made at school — the second highest-area where complaints are made. The largest number of complaints — 58 percent — come from elsewhere in the community.

The vast majority of these complaints are for simple misdemeanors — things such as disorderly conduct, petty theft or possession of alcohol.

“What we’re talking about is normal adolescent behaviors,” Padgett said.

Keeping youth out of the system

Structural changes are needed for the state to continue to see less disparity in the number of Black students charged — and fewer students overall charged with a crime, Padgett said.

One change is establishing a minimum age for Juvenile Court jurisdiction. Iowa currently is one of 24 states without a minimum age, Padgett said. “We see youth as young as 6 with a juvenile court complaint,” she said.

Padgett also advocated for the state to eliminate the possibility of charging youth as adults, bypassing the juvenile justice system. The juvenile system was created for children whose brains are still developing, she said.

Diversion programs are a good alternative to charging students criminally by helping students address their behavior with something like a skill-building class, Padgett said. The Cedar Rapids school district expanded the number of charges that can qualify for diversion from arrest as a part of changes made to the school resource officer program. Diversion measures include preventive conversations and investigations, safety plans, restorative conversations and parent meetings.

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