Policing-Free Schools
OVERVIEW
This is the 4th (Part 1) of 5 modules for our short series on Policing-Free Schools, featuring Andrea Vázquez Jiménez from Policing-Free Schools Canada.
You can find the transcription for this video here (including visual descriptions for the video).
Refer to our glossary if you’re having trouble understanding any of the terms in this series.
What is the difference between reformist and non-reformist reforms?
Reformist reforms are actions that maintain, expand, or legitimize policing, even if they appear to introduce change. In contrast, non-reformist reforms are steps that actively reduce the presence, power, and impact of policing. Within the context of schools, this distinction is critical because harm continues when policing structures remain intact or are reshaped rather than dismantled.
What is a reformist reforms approach to police-in-school programs?
Reformist approaches can take many forms, often presenting as improvements or alternatives while still reproducing harm. This includes creating new programs that replicate policing functions, rebranding or renaming existing programs, reducing the number of officers without eliminating their presence, or introducing changes such as additional training, modified uniforms, or altered roles. It can also involve replacing police with other authority figures like private security or special constables, or expanding surveillance and punitive disciplinary practices. Even when police are no longer physically present in the same way, these approaches can continue to entrench policing and carceral systems within schools through policies, practices, and institutional culture.
What is tiered and layered policing?
Tiered and layered policing refers to the expansion of policing across different roles, systems, and everyday practices, including through partnerships with social services. It reflects how policing can extend beyond traditional police presence, embedding itself into multiple aspects of school and community life. This makes it insufficient to focus only on removing formal police-in-school programs, as policing can persist in other interconnected forms.
How do we ensure non-reformist reforms (abolitionist steps)?
Ensuring non-reformist reforms involves critically assessing whether actions genuinely reduce harm or reinforce existing systems. Key questions include whether a change reduces funding to police, decreases the scale of policing, limits the tools and technologies available to police, and challenges the idea that police create safety. These questions help distinguish between actions that dismantle harmful systems and those that unintentionally sustain them.
How can this inform actionable steps within the context of school boards?
Non-reformist reforms can be applied across different school board contexts, whether police-in-school programs are still in place, have been removed, or never existed. Actions may include removing all police-in-school programs, conducting reviews through an equity lens, and issuing public acknowledgements of harm. Funding previously allocated to policing can be redirected toward community-based supports and resources for students. Additional steps include implementing policies that limit police involvement to a last resort, developing police-free response procedures, partnering with community organizations to provide supports and programming, and revising existing protocols to reflect these changes. These actions contribute to a broader, ongoing process of unlearning and transforming how safety and support are understood in educational spaces, while also building toward larger systemic change at the provincial level.