School resource officers (SROs) in Texas referred tens of thousands of elementary and middle schoolers for prosecution for relatively minor misconduct over the last decade, a news investigation found.

An analysis by The New York Times and the San Antonio Express-News reported that, as the number of SROs in Texas grew, children in Texas ages 10 to 13 were referred to prosecution for misbehaving in school more than 47,000 times since 2014. A referral doesn't necessarily result in charges being filed, but each one represents a minor being taken into police custody and put in contact with the criminal justice system, which can have long-lasting educational, emotional, and financial impacts for students and their families.

"Most of the students were accused of minor offenses, like making threats, using cannabis vapes or lashing out at classmates or teachers," the papers reported. "Few caused serious physical harm."

Among the examples cited by the Times and Express-News were an 11-year-old who bumped into a school counselor, a 10-year-old who said he saw someone on campus with a weapon, and a 10-year-old who kicked an assistant principal after his cellphone was taken away. 

In one case, a 12-year-old girl who refused to go to the principal's office was handcuffed, arrested, and driven to the school police headquarters. "When she would not put her hand on a fingerprint machine, officers twisted her opposite arm behind her back until she screamed and complied, according to body camera footage," the outlets reported.

The analysis found that referrals of children 10 to 13 increased by a greater percentage than referrals of older students. (Children under 10 cannot be prosecuted under Texas law; many other states don't set a minimum age for delinquency.)

The two outlets published another joint investigation in May on how SROs in Texas schools have used heavy-handed tactics, including Tasers and pepper spray, against students over seemingly minor misconduct.

The findings mirror other recent studies. A report published in July by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa found that, while SROs were placed in Iowa schools to keep students safe from violence, the threat they most commonly dealt with was illicit vaping.

The number of police in schools nationally dramatically increased in recent years, growing by 23 percent at high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools between 2018 and 2021, largely under the justification of stopping mass shootings and handling violent situations.

Organizations like the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) say that carefully selected, well-trained officers act as a filter and decrease arrests by building strong relationships within the school with staff and students.

Civil liberties groups and disability advocates have long argued that increases in school police and zero-tolerance policies for petty disturbances have fueled the "school-to-prison" pipeline and led to disproportionate enforcement against minorities and students with disabilities. Those groups have been aided by viral news stories of police arresting and assaulting school children.

Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and national calls for police reform, several major school districts across the country ended their SRO programs. 

However, several states that experienced horrific school shootings, like Florida and Texas, moved in the opposite direction, passing laws that required police officers or armed guardians in public schools.

A 2020 Reason investigation described how Florida schools had become a high-stakes experiment in policing after Florida more than doubled the number of SROs across the state following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A study published in 2020 found that after the increase, the number of Florida school arrests—which had been declining for years—suddenly started to rise. There was also a sharp increase in the use of physical restraint against students.

A 2021 working paper by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, which billed itself as the broadest and most rigorous examination at the school level of how SROs impact student outcomes, found that while SROs "do effectively reduce some forms of violence in schools," they did not prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents.

Another study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the firm Westat, who studied several dozen middle and high schools in California, found that increasing the number of SROs led to both immediate and persistent increases in the number of drug and weapon offenses and the number of suspensions and expulsions of students.

The post Texas School Police Referred Tens of Thousands of Children to Prosecutors for Minor Misbehavior appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Police claim Brad Lander and 80 other activists didn't coordinate, despite IDF maps showing no coordination needed in area; Israel accuses Lander of 'harvesting headlines'

At the Tribunal de Paris, judges have supervised a carousel of expedited and often chaotic hearings for those detained during recent unrest.

© Lou Benoist/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Home and office safety a common concern in Australian federal police and Asio safety briefings with politicians following alleged attack on MP Helen Haines

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Security agencies will review safety precautions for MPs’ homes and offices after numerous federal politicians told police and Asio in safety briefings that they were worried about widening threats after the alleged attack on Helen Haines.

The Labor government and politicians across the parliament are still considering how they will respond when they return to Canberra next week, with ideas being floated including a new committee on MPs’ safety, greater resources for police, and motions of condolence for Haines, who lost both her legs after Monday’s incident. Renewed calls from the crossbench for reforms to question time and the tone of debate in parliament are unlikely to be taken up by the major parties.

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© Photograph: James Ross/EPA

© Photograph: James Ross/EPA

© Photograph: James Ross/EPA

Five suspects have been arrested in connection with an armed robbery in Limassol on October 8, during which a couple were tied up inside their home and robbed of cash and jewellery worth more than €100,000.

According to police, the suspects, aged 29, 27, 25, 24 and 20, were arrested following an investigation by Limassol CID and an assessment of evidence gathered in the case.

During a search of the residence where the suspects were staying in Limassol, carried out under a court warrant, officers seized clothing and tools believed to have been used in the robbery.

The incident was reported by a 36-year-old woman, who told police that she and her 43-year-old husband were asleep when five masked intruders entered their bedroom armed with knives and a pistol.

The assailants allegedly restrained her husband with adhesive tape before demanding that she open a safe located in the bedroom.

They reportedly stole €5,000 in cash, $1,000 and jewellery valued at more than €100,000.

Before fleeing the scene, the intruders also tied up the woman with adhesive tape.

The five suspects are expected to appear before Limassol district court at around 10.30am on Wednesday, where police will seek their remand in custody.

Court of appeal decision prevents woman from suing police and CPS for disclosing her address to violent ex-partner

The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she hopes the UK’s highest court “sees sense” and overturns a ruling preventing a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for disclosing her address to her violent ex-partner.

Phillips said that if the supreme court upheld the court of appeal’s decision when it hears the case on Wednesday and Thursday, it would prevent police from being held accountable for failures in cases of violence against women and girls.

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© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

One person was arrested for offences including unlawful possession of burglary tools and unlawful possession of property during nationwide police operations on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday.

According to a statement from the police communications branch, officers carried out organised patrols at key locations in urban areas across Cyprus, aimed at preventing serious crime, maintaining public order and improving public safety.

During the operations, police stopped 441 vehicles and checked 552 occupants. Officers also inspected 35 premises as part of efforts to tackle illegal activity, with no offences reported.

Traffic checks resulted in 247 reports for various violations, while a further 10 suspected traffic offences are under investigation.

Of the violations recorded, 43 involved speeding, while seven vehicles were impounded.

Police also conducted 94 alcohol tests, resulting in six reports, as well as six preliminary drug tests, three of which returned positive results.

Police said preventive operations would continue daily, with increased patrols, targeted checks and immediate operational action aimed at combating crime, protecting the public and maintaining order.

Children as young as 12 among dozens subject to federal police operations since 2020, parliamentary inquiry hears

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Australia is facing a “tsunami” of youth crime as artificial intelligence accelerates the pace and scale of radicalisation, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

The Australian federal police acting deputy commissioner Sandra Booth told the hearing on Wednesday that, while radicalisation had traditionally taken years or months, that process could now happen within days.

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© Photograph: Oleg Elkov/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: Oleg Elkov/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: Oleg Elkov/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Since 1871, a federal statute has authorized Americans to sue state and local officials for violating their constitutional rights. But since 1982, thanks to the court-invented doctrine of qualified immunity, such claims have been allowed only when they allege violations of "clearly established" law.

Because courts often require plaintiffs to meet that standard by citing precedents involving closely similar facts, qualified immunity can prove insurmountable even for victims of outrageous abuses. But as two recent cases illustrate, there are limits to this license for misconduct, meaning officials may still be held accountable when they flout longstanding constitutional principles, even when they do so in novel ways.

In 2022, Mario Rosales and Gracie Lasyone sued two Alexandria, Louisiana, police officers, Samuel Terrell and Jim Lewis, alleging that they had pulled Rosales over without legal justification. The cops ordered Rosales and Lasyone, his girlfriend, out of the car and detained them for 21 minutes, during which they grilled the couple about illegal drugs, frisked Rosales, and instructed him to empty his pockets.

Terrell and Lewis sought refuge in qualified immunity. But last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Rosales and Lasyone had plausibly alleged several Fourth Amendment violations, including a stop based on a "fabricated traffic violation," an improperly prolonged detention, and unjustified searches.

In reaching that conclusion, the 5th Circuit relied mainly on a 1968 decision in which the Supreme Court said police may detain someone only if they reasonably suspect he is involved in criminal activity and may frisk him only if they reasonably suspect he is "armed and dangerous." Assuming the facts alleged in the lawsuit are true, the three-judge panel unanimously held, Terrell and Lewis had failed both of those tests.

When the officers stopped Rosales, the principles that the 5th Circuit applied had been the law of the land for more than half a century. Terrell and Lewis nevertheless argued that "any constitutional violation arising from the traffic stop was not clearly established," which gives you a sense of the chutzpah that qualified immunity invites.

Police commonly pull drivers over, ostensibly for traffic violations, in the hope of implicating them in drug crimes. A case that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit considered this month involved a much more unusual scenario: a judge who locked two children in jail cells because he was frustrated by their resistance to a parental custody decision.

During a 2019 hearing in Taney County, Missouri, a divorced couple agreed that the mother would have primary custody of their two children, then 12 and 14. But contrary to that agreement, the children did not want to go home with their mother, which led to an argument in the courthouse lobby.

Judge Eric Eighmy intervened, telling the children they had to leave with their mother and repeatedly warning them that they could end up in foster care if they refused to do so. When that did not work, Eighmy jailed them until they became more cooperative.

"The time spent in the holding-cell area was between twenty and forty minutes," the 8th Circuit noted. And since Eighmy did not have probable cause to believe the children had committed any offense, "much less one that justified placing them in a holding cell," the court said, their confinement clearly violated the Fourth Amendment.

If so, Eighmy argued, he had no way of knowing that. The 8th Circuit panel unanimously disagreed: "As we put it over a decade and a half ago, long before the events in this case, 'it is clearly established that a warrantless arrest, unsupported by probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment.'"

Notably, the 8th Circuit did not think the bizarre details of the case counted in Eighmy's favor. "We are not concerned about the lack of a prior case" with "fundamentally similar" facts, it said. "Indeed, given how clear the law is, it would have been surprising to find one."

© Copyright 2026 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post 2 Recent Cases Illustrate the Limits of a Doctrine That Often Blocks Civil Rights Claims appeared first on Reason Magazine.