Police and school: are we losing aesthetics?

In August 2008, chance brought me to the scorching city of Page, Arizona. I have never experienced more scorching heat in my life. To try and keep myself biologically intact, I took refuge with a pitcher of beer at the Mexican restaurant La Fiesta. I was glancing at the Lake Powell Chronicle when Stevie Manniel, a Navajo Indian, sat next to me. He was half-drunk and wanted money. I showed him the state of my pants, in tatters, and he replied that only the rich dared to go out on the street with ripped pants.—What do you find interesting in the newspaper? —he/she asked me.I told him about a piece of news that I found surprising: the county's educational authorities were organizing teenage work teams during the hottest months of summer. They did strenuous work, such as repairing street furniture or the gardens of the elderly, or even road labor, with the aim of creating bonds between isolated teenagers, because —the newspaper said— "there is no worse company for teenagers than loneliness." Although everything was organized by the county's educational authorities, the implementation was carried out by local police volunteers without any financial compensation. One policeman assured that working under those climatic conditions made the collaboration between all those involved and the creation of bonds of trust and solidarity essential. Participation was voluntary and young people could withdraw whenever they wished.Given that my image of deep America's police was shaped by the arbitrary sheriffs of Hollywood movies, all of this surprised me so much that I took it with suspicion, even though the program supervisor assured that the mission of the police is, first and foremost, to prevent crime and ensure the well-being of the entire community. And then, surprisingly, that woman quoted Plato: the mission of the police, she said, is to guarantee the freedom of citizens.

And so I arrive at the question that really interests me: why have Catalan teachers, instead of seeing a police officer as a guarantor of the students' freedom, seen them as an authoritarian intruder in educational work? Obviously, I am referring to plainclothes police officers who, as a pilot experience, the Generalitat proposed integrating into schools with prevention and mediation tasks.We all know that there are centers with difficult behaviors to manage. There are physical and verbal aggressions that affect the rights of those who want to study. That is why more human resources are requested. But in no case, it seems, can they be Mossos d’Esquadra.I will not judge the reasons for the anti-police suspicions of educational centers, but I do want to say that I note a biased view of the police that, in itself, seems uneducational to me. The school and the police are fundamental institutions of the res publica that, precisely because both want to make citizens' freedom possible, should respect each other mutually in democracy.I have collected some of the messages that have been spread from educational centers: “We must reinforce education, not surveillance”, “Fewer police officers and more social educators”, “Neither trained nor uniformed. More resources and less police”, “Educating is not controlling, but accompanying”, “Out with the occupying forces from educational centers”. A representative of the families maintained, with a conviction that leaves me perplexed, that “police officers are not educational agents”. Why not?"The solution —a teacher added— is to ensure discipline is enforced, because currently in our institutes there is impunity. You can do whatever you want and there are almost no consequences. Therefore, now, facing this problem, the Mossos? No. First, let's analyze why we have arrived here".What worries me is the growing therapeutic drift of the school.By focusing on rejection, we have not found serious answers to the relevant question: is the presence of police in schools useful?Some research suggests it may be effective for managing specific serious violent incidents, but we have no evidence concluding that it improves school safety in general. This is the point we have not debated.Last Thursday, I met a perplexed father at the exit of a school with a wild child. After admonishing him without success, he resorted to a definitive argument. Pointing to the policeman who was guaranteeing the children's freedom of movement, he told him sternly: "Behave yourself, or the policeman will come."