Our campaign for
POLICE FREE SCHOOLS

Every day, school police are the first people1.1. million young people who attend New York City’s 1,500+ public schools see when they walk into schools. Before they even enter their school building, Black and Brown students in particular are forced to wait outside in a long line of students to pass through the metal detectors. 

The presence of police, surveillance, and invasive security measures pushes our most vulnerable students further to the margins. We know our history and understand that police have been embedded in NYC public schools to police our movements and restrict our freedoms. There is no substantial evidence that police or metal detectors create safer school communities. However, there is a growing body of research that illustrates that the presence of police in schools criminalizes Black, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, and disabled students. 

● 91% of NYC youth who receive an arrest each year are Black and Latinx students. 

● Experiencing an arrest or a court appearance during high school doubles and quadruples, respectively, the odds of a student dropping out. 

● NYC employs more school cops (5,500) than guidance counselors (3,000) and social workers (2,400) combined. 

● NYC spends $450 million dollars on the School Safety Division (SSD)—but only invested $12 this year in restorative justice 

● Schools began to employ security personnel in the 1960s—not to keep students safe, but as a measure to oppose integration and control Black youth in the Civil Rights era. 

For decades, Black and Latinx communities have organized to remove police from our public education system to end the mass criminalization of Black and Latinx youth and break the school-to-prison and deportation pipelines. Advocates have also been saying for years that police cannot keep communities safer than they can keep themselves, especially as policing was designed to control communities of color. This principle applies to school safety as well. Mental health supports for youth, resources for guidance programs, restorative justice practices—have all been proven to reduce school violence, improve school climate, and secure school safety more than police.

The problem of school safety can never be solved with police. The solution can only begin with their complete removal from education environments. Youth leaders with the Urban Youth Collaborative are committed to the struggle to remove police from their schools and transform school communities into nurturing and liberatory spaces for all young people. After decades of criminalizing and policing young people in every space we occupy, we are demanding police-free schools now and forever. 

Check out our city budget demands here. Thank you to the elected officials who signed our Vision for Police Free Schools.