On the surface, flex-cuffs may seem like a band-aid solution to the problems in Milwaukee Public Schools.
But they are a necessary one.
Once again, MPS has become the center of a heated debate of morality and criminalization.
In response to the recent rash of student violence, the school board and the Milwaukee Police Department had proposed allowing security staff to restrain violent students with plastic handcuffs. But the school board defeated the plan last week.
The plastic handcuffs proposed are called “flexi cuffs,” resembling household zip ties, which would restrain an unruly student while school security removes them from the violent situation.
The Milwaukee community needs to support restraining unruly and violent students within the schools. It’s become quite clear that something must be done to ensure safety to school educators and students.
While far from perfect, handcuffing to curb violence has become a necessary option.
This year, it’s become abundantly clear how important school safety and security can be. Our country and state have endured a quick incline of bizarre and disturbing violent outbursts in schools.
Last November, a male student sexually assaulted a female teacher in front of the class at Madison High School. At Ronald Wilson Reagan College Prep School, a 15-year-old female student fractured the principal's back by pushing her against a wall.
This violent behavior is not only appalling but also shameful; Milwaukee’s community can no longer allow things like this to happen inside school walls.
MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos strongly supports the use of flexi cuffs for restraining violent students during an outburst. His concern is that restraining the hands of someone is much safer than the security staff or the Milwaukee Police Department wrestling that student to the floor.
Concerned Milwaukee parents have voiced their dislike for the flexi cuffs calling them “cruel.” Jerry Hamilton, the NAACP Milwaukee president, worries that flexi cuffs teach children to adjust to being a criminal.
Yet the flexi cuffs are not for punishing students who have misbehaved, they are simply for restraining a violent student. Using the flexi cuffs will be entirely unnecessary as long as students are not posing a violent threat.
We must keep in mind above athletics, above the Prom and even above exams, a school’s responsibility is to prepare youth for adulthood. A school demonstrating that assaulting another human is criminal and results in restraints is not, by any means, unreasonable.
Those who oppose flexi cuffs also worry about that the violent outbursts demonstrate emotional and psychological problems of students. These concerned folks have offered helpful suggestions for alternatives, including more Milwaukee Police inside schools, a crisis team of counselors, psychologists, and social workers to monitor students behavioral patterns for a length of time.
While these are pleasant alternatives, they are simply leaps and bounds from realistic. All these suggestions take a great deal of money, which is something Wisconsin taxpayers are simply not going to do.
While flexi cuffs are not ideal, they are the most cost effective way to ensure the safety and well being of all Milwaukee Public School staff and students.
