Rachel Lee & Molly Bloom: Keeping the Children Safe
school to prison pipeline
school to prison pipeline
The image communicates a great deal about how the LASPD is constructing force and policing as a paternalistic type of care of children. It suggests that, it is for the own good of the ethnic minority school children population that arrests are made. However, the shocking statistic in the image below the LASPD is a counterargument to underlying argument of the LASPD visual rhetoric. The statistical image below counters the rhetoric of LASPD’s force for the sake of ‘protection.'
Again, I would add more image description for the sake of accessibility and thick description.
My eye first focuses on the “One in four” title. It moves down to the children walking across the screen and I perceive that one of them is red. At this point, I perceive the police force that I have noticed above the “One in 4” image as protective of the children. My eye moves up to focus in on the “protecting the children” image. My brain automatically assumes that these police officers are the protective force of the children below. However, I then perceive what the ‘one in four’ caption refers to.
As a mom of elementary and middle school children
I think Janelle created this image since it presents two contrasting ideas through a conspicuous illustration. While the banner in the top shows LA school police’s reassuring phrase “Protecting the Children, Our Future,” the illustration at the bottom ironically highlights a sticking figure (numerical value) that one in four arrests made by LASPD are of elementary and middle school students. These two contrasting data cause the audience to infer who the vulnerable subjects are.
This image projects the concept of policing as benevolence. This is clearly ironic with the statistical data from the ACLU next to the images of the friendly police officers. The statistical data shows how much free reign police have in public schools in California.
The image of the police officer playing connect 4 with the young boy in touching. I want to relish in this captured moment in which male police officers and the boy (who is normally the subject of policing) have a moment of intimate connection. It is almost a representation of a father-son moment in which the police officer has the opportunity to have fun with a young boy, while also teaching him something about life.
I would blow up the image of the police officer playing Connect 4 so that this is the only image on the left side. It has such affective force that I think it should be the main focus point of the image. As the image is now, it is hard to find a focus point.