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Undisciplined: Cops And Scholars

Steven Depolo, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The Los Angeles Unified School District funds the largest independent school police department in the nation. Last year, the department was funded to the tune of 70 million dollars. So, what does the district get for that investment? Well, according to a new report, a lot of distrust among students. Today we’ll dissect the research.  

The report is based on nearly ten years of incident reports, and it has several very disconcerting findings. Perhaps the most disconcerting is this: while school enrollment has decreased in the past decade, funding for police in the district has increased. And yet students still don’t feel safe.

 

Joining us to talk about the report is the brief’s lead author, Elianny Edwards. She is a PhD student in the Human Development and Psychology division of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education, and a former K-6 classroom teacher.

 

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.