The Center for Public Integrity has won an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for its collaboration with Retro Report on a documentary about deployment of police in schools.
The 12-minute piece, “Unraveling Zero Tolerance,” examines the roots and evolution of using police in schools, and the controversial consequences. Touted as critical to fending off school shootings, drug dealers and disorder, zero tolerance policies morphed over time into a blizzard of student suspensions and arrests for minor indiscretions, many of them involving manhandling of kids by over-aggressive cops. Now some are wondering whether the zero tolerance ‘solution’ is turning out to be worse than the problem it was designed to address.
Retro Report is a nonprofit documentary project that looks back at major news events or controversies through the lens of history, examining how legislative or societal reactions played out after the headlines faded.
The Center’s work on “Unraveling Zero Tolerance” was done by reporter Susan Ferriss, who has investigated harsh school discipline policies and school policing extensively.
