Public Schools In Action: Kindergartners Taken to Jail For "Field Trip," Placed Behind Bars

Chris | InformationLiberation
Apr. 19, 2012

Kindergartners from Sunnyside Elementary taking part in an "educational field trip" were taken to a jail, and some of the children even had the fortune to be put behind bars!

The Chicago Sun Times reports:

At 6 years old, Stephen Stovall has seen the inside of jail.

But not because he did anything wrong.

Stephen’s kindergarten class was taken to jail at the Hillside Police Station on Monday as part of a field trip organized by a teacher at Sunnyside Elementary in that western suburb — a field trip parents were told was to be a visit to the library.

Now, some of those parents are upset because they were unaware the field trip called for their children to visit a jail.

“Is this supposed to be a scared-straight tactic?” Stephen’s indignant mother, Carmen Ware, wanted to know. “For 6-year-olds? I don’t get this. What exactly is Sunnyside School saying — that it is a temporary holding facility for the jailhouse?”

Stephen’s family says he was put in a jail cell — and locked up. Hillside police dispute that, saying the boy may have confused a holding area with bars a cell.

The police go on to explain they never placed the kindergartners in "jail cells," they just placed them in a "holding area" which "has bars," and the children must have mistakenly "interpreted" said holding area for a jail. A satisfying explanation for a government educated pleb, no doubt.

"It isn’t uncommon for elementary-age children to participate in local jail programs," the Sun Times notes.

No doubt, they do it every day.

[The appropriate image above is taken from a T-shirt sold by the Twin Rivers Police Officers Association who made the unfortunate "mistake" of letting the public know how they actually view them.]