Many were outraged last year when a 9-year-old boy from Washington, D.C. was chased down by police and handcuffed for leaning on a police car. Following the immense backlash of that incident as well as similar instances involving minors, D.C. police have announced that they will no longer handcuff children.
Multiple videos have surfaced online of D.C. police officers handcuffing and manhandling young children despite outrage from local residents and those across the country. Apparently, after realizing just how damaging the criticism has been (and hopefully because they realized it was wrong) there will be a significant change made in the police department. @Blavity reports, no children under the age of 12 will be handcuffed in D.C. moving forward.
The official announcement was made earlier this week and featured a packet that outlined the new protocol with images of Black children and police officers. The new initiative is named Interacting With Juveniles, and in addition to prohibiting handcuffing minors “unless the juvenile presents a danger to themselves or others,” it also allows an officer’s discretion in regard to children ages 13 to 18.
To ensure that the arrest of juvenile offenders is minimal, officers are ordered to obtain information and release the child to a parent or guardian. Although, the new policy still includes a curfew law that allows any officer to detain a juvenile who is suspected of being out past 11:30 PM on weekdays and states that the juvenile may not be returned to their parent if found to be “at risk.”
Marc Schindler, Executive Director of the Justice Policy Institute, was happy about the change, but still acknowledged the racial bias that led to mostly underage black children being handcuffed:
“The cases that brought this discussion to the public’s attention were outrageous and were examples of police overreacting. I don’t think it was an accident that it was young boys of color.”
We sincerely hope that this new change is one for the better.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this?
