Massachusetts is one of only six states that doesn’t license police officers, which, according to St. Louis University law professor Roger Goldman, makes it difficult to regulate training requirements as well as hiring standards.

The room has the buzz of a high school cafeteria as police officers huddle around tables, creating lists of words that describe their teenage selves.
Mischievous, sneaky, crazy, impulsive, risky, weird, emotional—and yes, even horny—make it onto supersized sticky notes that get posted on the classroom walls.

Baltimore officials have launched a criminal investigation into a recent incident involving a city school police officer who slapped and kicked a 16-year-old boy in a hallway. In a graphic and profanity-laden cellphone video, which surfaced on Tuesday and quickly spread on social media, the teen stands with his back against a wall as the officer strikes him multiple times, yelling, “get the f*** out of here.” A second officer stands by watching.

Virginia legislators have rejected three bills crafted to limit school policing statewide, exposing a rift among GOP lawmakers, in particular, over a prominent criminal justice issue being debated across the nation. A pair of other related measures are still winding their way through the legislative process.

Police are writing more crime reports at three local schools than almost any other location in the county. The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette analyzed every non-traffic crime report filed in Beaufort County in 2014 and ranked the addresses where the most reports were written. The county’s two Walmarts were the two top spots for crime reports, as reported Wednesday. Three schools, all in Beaufort, also made it into the top 10.

All week, police and officials from juvenile probation have gathered in Lewiston for “Policing the Teen Brain” training. The idea is to improve interaction between police officers and the youths they deal with daily.

Children are the future of Cincinnati’s collaborative agreement. That was a main theme coming out of a community policing roundtable Wednesday morning.

If the city wants to solve its crime problem, it needs to improve the way it handles juvenile criminals. That was the re-occurring theme of a police roundtable of elected officials, community activists and police officers held Wednesday….

Public Integrity investigation revealed Virginia’s high rate of arrests
Legislators should rewrite state codes to reduce Virginia’s high rate of arresting young students, child legal-rights advocates argue in a new report. Staff at the Virginia Legal Aid Justice Center contend that the commonwealth’s existing statutes allow police to easily intervene in school discipline disputes and criminalize typical childhood misbehavior.

Video: U.S. Department of Education panel discussion about School Resources Officers and the role of the law in our schools. Lisa Thurau from SFY is a member of this panel.