Pubdate: Sun, 06 Apr 2014
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Authors: Theshia Naidoo and Lynne Lyman
Note: Theshia Naidoo is a senior staff attorney at the Drug Policy 
Alliance. Lynne Lyman is the California state director for the Drug 
Policy Alliance.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)

DRUG ENFORCEMENT GONE WRONG

Should We Allow Cops Posing As Students to Trick Kids into Breaking Laws?

Jesse Snodgrass had recently transferred to Chaparral High School in 
Temecula and was feeling out of place and alone in 2012 when a boy 
named Dan, another newcomer, befriended him. Jesse, a 17-year-old 
autistic student, wasn't good at making friends and he was pleased by 
the overture. But there was something he didn't know about Dan: He 
was an undercover narcotics officer attending class at Chaparral 
hoping to bust student drug dealers.

Dan quickly began exerting pressure on Jesse to sneak a pill from his 
parent's medicine cabinet or buy him some marijuana. Jesse, whose 
demeanor and speech clearly signal his autism, was at first at a loss 
for how to meet his friend's request. But he finally sought out a 
homeless man near a dispensary and traded a $20 bill Dan had given 
him for a plastic bag containing less than a gram of marijuana 
leaves. A few months after the two young men met, Jesse was arrested 
and found himself alone and bewildered in juvenile detention.

Jesse was lucky to have parents who stood by him and helped him 
navigate the court system. A judge has now purged his record of the 
drug charge, and an administrative law judge issued a scathing ruling 
that the school could not expel him, saying that the evidence was 
overwhelming that his disability had influenced his actions.

But we as a society still have some soul-searching to do. Should we 
really allow adults to dress up as kids, embed themselves in school 
classrooms and trick children into breaking the law?

The Riverside County Sheriff 's Department regularly targets high 
school students, sometimes, as in this case, inspiring crime where it 
otherwise would not have existed. In the last four years, the 
department has staged four undercover sting operations in which adult 
officers, masquerading as high school students, repeatedly pressured 
students to obtain illegal substances for them. Over the last four 
years, nearly 100 students, a number of whom were special-needs 
students, have been arrested.

It is unclear why the Riverside sheriff continues to use this 
ill-advised strategy, and why area school districts continue to allow 
it. Such stings have been abandoned by many law enforcement agencies 
and banned by school districts across the country. The Los Angeles 
Unified School District hasn't allowed undercover stings in its 
schools since 2004, when it concluded that they had the potential to 
harm students but had not reduced the availability of drugs on 
campus. The National Assn. of School Safety and Law Enforcement 
Officials has concluded that undercover high school operations have a 
high potential for bad outcomes for kids without evidence of 
corresponding good results for communities.

Building on the efforts of Jesse's family, the Drug Policy Alliance 
has been working to call attention to the problem in Riverside County 
through community education. We also recently sent a letter to the 
superintendents of 20 Riverside County school districts urging them 
not to allow undercover law enforcement operations on their campuses.

The letter noted that operations of this kind are not only 
ineffective in combating drug availability on campus, they also can 
inflict irreparable harm on young people struggling with the 
challenges of adolescence or special needs.

Children should receive honest drug education from their schools, not 
face deception and betrayal by people they think are their peers. 
Inevitably, as in the case of Jesse Snodgrass, high school drug 
stings will ensnare some students who would never have been involved 
in obtaining or selling drugs without being manipulated by undercover 
officers. Is pushing students into illicit activities really the best 
use of scant law enforcement resources?

Educators, parents, students and the community at large should call 
on law enforcement agencies to do real police work rather than 
targeting children in schools. Simply adding to arrest statistics, 
regardless of the consequences, does not protect schools or communities.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom