More than two-thirds (69 percent) of middle and high school students think police should be removed from schools, a report from the Center for Popular Democracy finds.

Based on a survey of more than six hundred public school students as well as youth who were not in school but had been within the last eighteen months, the report, Arrested Learning: A survey of youth experiences of police and security at school (90 pages, PDF), found that 41 percent of respondents said they felt "unsafe" or "very unsafe" whenever they encountered a police officer at school. And a third (33 percent) reported feeling targeted by police based on their race, primary language, sexual orientation, or gender identity, with 64 percent of all respondents, 73 percent of Black respondents, and 74 percent of Latinx respondents saying that they or someone they knew had experienced at least one type of negative interaction with school police — including verbal harassment (20.3 percent), physical assault (10 percent), use of pepper spray (10 percent), physical search (34 percent), physical restraint (25 percent), arrest (26 percent), and the issuing of a juvenile report (18 percent) or ticket for court (16 percent).

The survey also found that 55 percent of respondents had to go through metal detectors at school and that Black and Latinx students were more likely than their white classmates to be subjected to further security measures, including being made to take off their shoes (34 percent and 22 percent vs. 7 percent), being patted down (17 percent and 9 percent vs. 4 percent), being physically searched (39 percent and 35 percent vs. 24 percent), and being "wanded" (40 percent and 28 percent vs. 17 percent).

According to the report, most students would rather see increased funding for dedicated college-prep programming and other resources and supports rather than for police, with 44 percent and 33 percent of respondents ranking mental health supports and teachers, respectively, as their highest funding priority and 77 percent ranking police as the lowest priority.

"The school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline is one of the most egregious examples of systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence in our country," said Kate Terenzi, senior policy and campaign strategist at the Center for Popular Democracy. "For too long, abusive policing has dominated school hallways and stifled students’ education, funneling them into the criminal legal system. Students deserve more than an education system that is hell-bent on criminalizing them instead of providing them with the resources they need to succeed."