Racial Disparity in Discipline Persists While Suspensions Drop in New York City Schools

New York City education and police officials on Thursday released new data on school safety, including figures on arrests and summonses, use of handcuffs, and metal detectors. The numbers were required by an amendment to the School Safety Act, passed late last year.

Here’s what WNYC’s Data News Team found in the numbers:

Most arrests involve black and Latino students.

In the first quarter of 2016, January through March, there were 436 arrests in schools. Of those, more than 90 percent were black or Latino.

There were 339 summonses issued. Of those, again, more than 90 percent were black or Latino.

In comparison, just nine white people were arrested, and nine whites were given summonses. Students of Asian descent had similarly low numbers. 

The youngest person arrested was a 10-year-old black boy. The youngest person given a summons was a 14-year-old black girl.

Neither was put in restraints – handcuffs, or Velcro restraints – but more than a dozen 12-year-old students were handcuffed, according to data released by the New York Police Department.

The NYPD reported 1,208 “incidents” in the first quarter of the year. These included arrests, summonses and children taken for psychological evaluation.  

Suspensions Drop 

Department of Education officials said the number of suspensions dropped 32 percent in the first half of the 2015-16 school year compared to the same time period the previous year. 

They attributed the decline to fewer suspensions for insubordination, a category used inconsistently across the school system and seen as a "major factor" in racial disparities in suspensions. Insubordination suspensions fell 81 percent during the first half of the 2015-16 school year compared to the same time frame last year.

Metal Detector List Remains Elusive

Thursday's report, prepared jointly by the education and police departments, said there were 79 school buildings with permanent metal detectors, also known as scanners, and nine with random or part-time scanning procedures. Keep in mind, many school buildings house multiple schools. 

WNYC found earlier this year that there were permanent scanners at 236 schools, with more than 100,000 students being scanned every day. And black and Latino high school students were nearly three times more likely to attend a scanning school than white high school students.

Under the current law, the city is supposed to provide a complete list of schools with scanners. That full list has not been made available yet.

But, for the first time, education and police officials outlined a process for installing permanent and random scanners — and for removing them.