Criminal Treatment Requires Criminal Rights

Make no mistake: school "resource officers" in Kentucky are cops, and not the Officer Friendly kind. They treat students like street thugs, assume they are guilty until proven innocent, and haul them off to prison ("juvenile detention centers") for the tiniest infractions.

The very least schools can do is warn students of their civil rights.

Andrew Wolfson at the Courier:

Principals in Kentucky may soon have to worry about reading students their rights — in addition to ensuring they know how to read and write.

The Kentucky Supreme Court is considering a case from Nelson County that could require school officials to give the Miranda warning — you have the right to remain silent and anything you say can and will be used against you — when questioning a student with a school resource officer present.


Principals frequently work in concert with such officers — there are 254 sworn police working in Kentucky schools, according to the Kentucky Center for School Safety, and up to 60 percent of schools nationwide have one on campus.

Principals may have to worry? Maybe if they had to think twice about treating children like hardened criminals Kentucky's prisons wouldn't be overflowing with kids locked up for throwing spitballs.