Criminality or Sociality: A Zero Sum Game?

Abstract

The School Safety Office, home to officers Duggan and Jones, is tucked away on the first floor and down a back hallway. After finding the office one morning, I proceeded to knock on the plain wooden door. After some audible shuffling around inside, a burly white cop with cropped brown hair opened the door. “Yeah, can I help you,” he said, in the flat unmistakable cadence of a working-class Chicago accent. This was Officer Duggan. He told me to come in. As I entered the small office I noticed two desks against the opposite wall. At one of the desks sat Officer Jones, a middle aged white female officer in a blue bullet proof vest. Against the other wall I noticed a skinny African American student in a gray T-shirt and jeans. I guessed that he was probably a sophomore or junior. After a quick double-take I realized that the student was handcuffed to a steel ring protruding from the wall. The kid gave me a wry smirk as I introduced myself to both Duggan and Jones. Duggan motioned toward the student and said, “We can’t really talk right now cause we have this problem over here.” “Problem?” I asked. “Yeah, we gotta wait for the paddy wagon to come pickup this goofball.” “Come back in a couple hours and we can talk,” he said. On my way out I wondered if the “goofball” was going to be handcuffed to the wall for the next “couple of hours?”