Junior High kids told: cops are not your friends

Shortly after the shooting death of Jordan Manners, the 15-year-old Toronto student, eighth-grade students at nearby Oakdale Park Middle School were called to an assembly. The subject: relations with the police. It's a hot issue in that part of town. The community is in an uproar over the shooting and allegations are flying that police have been heavy-handed in their hunt for Jordan's killer.

But the group invited by the school to address the students weren't interested in improving relations with the police. They were there to fan the flames. Their message to the 12- and 13-year-olds was simple: Don't trust the cops. They are not your friends. They deserve to be hated and feared, because they are bullying, brutal and racist. For good measure, they handed out an offensive little leaflet called "Survival Tactics: Dealing with Police." It kicks off with a reference to Rodney King, the black man who was beaten up by the Los Angeles police several years before these kids were born. "Although it may be difficult, be polite when they are insulting and bullying you," the brochure reads.

Who were these anti-cop propagandists? They were law students from nearby Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. They are volunteers with an outfit called Community and Legal Aid Services Programme, CLASP.

Glenn Stuart, who directs the program, told me that CLASP works with many local schools, starting as early as Grade 5. Its goal is to teach the kids their "rights." In these sessions, students are encouraged to relate incidents of police harassment and alleged brutality. Each kid gets a wallet-sized reminder entitled "Know Your Rights." It has an illustration of upraised fists - presumably representing the masses rising up against their oppressors.

Globe editorial: A code of silence that has to end One dead, three injured in Toronto area shooting Shots only came one way, police say McGuinty eyes handgun ban after brazen shoot-out Internet Links 'Survival Tactics: Dealing with Police' (pdf) Know your rights' (pdf) Needless to say, the police aren't included in these programs. That's because they're the enemy.

In fact, Toronto's police have made admirable efforts to expand community policing and outreach programs. Some officers spend hours of their own time volunteering with youth groups. And yet the cone of silence remains an tough obstacle to solving crimes and protecting the community from thugs. In this neighbourhood, it's better to go to jail than be a snitch. Hundreds of people turned out to mourn Jordan Manners and to demand that the city, the schools, the province and the federal government do something to stop the killing - but scarcely anyone was willing to help police catch the killer.

CLASP's well-meaning law students are mostly middle-class and white. I doubt if any of them have heard a random gunshot in their lives. Oakdale Park's students are largely a mix of Caribbean (mainly Jamaican), Southeast Asian (mainly Vietnamese) and other kids from immigrant backgrounds. Many come from disorganized, single-mother families where discipline is scarce, and they have a multitude of learning problems. The unwitting effect of the messages CLASP sends will be to keep them in the underclass forever.

Apart from hating the police, what other lessons are students learning in Canada's most at-risk schools? The main lesson is that there are no consequences for bad behaviour, or for lack of effort, or contempt for school. Although many of these students can barely read or write, the pressure to show "success" in such schools has grown intense. Teachers are simply not allowed to fail them, because that is said to hurt their self-esteem. (Last year, for example, the York Region District School Board failed just six Grade 8 students out of 8,064.) Nor are teachers allowed to deduct marks for handing in assignments late, or for routinely skipping classes. Teacher after teacher has told me: "The kids are in charge. We aren't."

Adolescents who lack structure in their lives need firm guidance and clear expectations. Instead, the schools offer a therapeutic approach that demands nothing and excuses everything, and pretends that self-esteem can be built without accomplishment. In this world of endless rights but no responsibilities, students learn that they are systematically victimized by society - starting with police and teachers. They learn that their troubles are everybody else's fault. They learn that mainstream values - such as respect for the law - are contemptible. This is called "empowerment."

This is the culture war that's playing out in Canada's most beleaguered schools. And the wrong side is winning.

Looking at all the responses here, it appears a significant element of the general public, or conservative element thereof, no longer has faith in government’s ability to provide public safety.

And I share the same feelings; there are local communities that are so over-policed I would not want a flat tire there. I’ll get 4 cop cars to pull up, and none of the officers would look to dirty their hands helping change the tire. They’d just try to use it as an excuse to search my car.

This ain’t good.

Community relations are a two way street.

Encouraging the community to hate the entire law enforcement establishment doesn’t make bad cops any better, it just makes things rougher for the good cops who don’t see you as the enemy - and drives that many more of them out of the field for someone worse to take their place.

Why don't police rat out the crooked cops?

The only answer is that they are dirty themselves.

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