Philadelphia’s college security chief named subsequent police commissioner

Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker has named Kevin Bethel, the College District of Philadelphia’s present chief of faculty security, as her new police commissioner.

Bethel has lengthy been a well-respected fixture in Philadelphia legislation enforcement and college security circles. Throughout his tenure within the college district, Bethel targeted on reforming the juvenile justice system, dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, and selling “trauma-informed policing.”

As a deputy police commissioner after which the district’s security director, he additionally developed a nationwide repute for his work emphasizing prevention over punishment as an strategy to enhancing pupil habits and self-discipline each out and in of faculty settings.

In his 4 years main college security for the district, “I consider now we have made the colleges safer,” Bethel stated at his appointment announcement at Metropolis Corridor on Wednesday. “It’s unacceptable that some college students really feel unsafe going to and from college.”

That is Parker’s first mayoral staffing announcement, although she doesn’t formally take workplace till January. She stated that she selected Bethel from amongst three candidates chosen by a search committee headed by former police commissioner Charles Ramsay.

Deputy Chief of College Security Craig Johnson will function interim chief for the district whereas a search is carried out for Bethel’s alternative, in response to the district.

“Chief Bethel is a category act, and I all the time felt very assured figuring out that he was overseeing all efforts to create secure studying environments for our college students to think about and understand any future they want,” Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington stated in an announcement Wednesday.

The Board of Training issued a joint assertion calling Bethel’s appointment “properly deserved” and that his departure could be a “vital loss” for the district.

Bethel’s college security legacy in Philadelphia colleges

A John Bartram Excessive College graduate, Bethel’s oft-repeated motto throughout his time within the police division and college district has been: “I didn’t turn into a cop to lock up youngsters.”

Whereas on the police power in 2013, Bethel stated he was “alarmed” by what number of college students had been being arrested within the metropolis beneath a “zero tolerance” coverage that noticed police known as on college students as younger as 10 years outdated.

“I can’t lock up a 10-year-old little one who comes to highschool with scissors,” he stated.

He described his dismay at a college in Kensington that put bulletproof blankets on the home windows as a result of close by shootings.

“I lived it when youngsters have been shot in entrance of our colleges,” he additionally recalled. “I by no means thought I’d take a job the place youngsters could be killed on the doorstep of a college.”

With buy-in from district officers and others, Bethel created a diversion program for college kids with no prior delinquency file who dedicated low-level offenses like preventing or possessing a pocket knife. That program was praised on the time for considerably lowering the variety of college students arrested at school from practically 1,600 in 2013-14 to 251 in 2018-19.

Bethel has additionally labored to enhance the district’s weapons detection course of — a ache level that’s drawn public fury.

In 2019, outraged protesters shut down a Philadelphia Board of Training assembly after members voted to make steel detectors obligatory in each district highschool. Within the years after, random wand screenings, X-ray machines, and different detection methods have been utilized in excessive colleges and a few center colleges.

Some dad and mom and neighborhood members have been crucial of the practices, which they stated could make college students really feel criminalized in their very own colleges.

When he introduced new college security measures final August, Bethel stated the district could be introducing a brand new “minimally invasive gun detection system” in 14 center colleges. These detectors had been chosen as a result of district officers had been in search of know-how “that didn’t add to the trauma of our younger individuals,” Bethel stated on the time.

To make sure, town nonetheless struggles with youth incarceration points. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June that town’s juvenile detention middle reached its highest inhabitants ranges ever, with 230 younger individuals in custody. The Inquirer found overcrowding resulted in dozens of younger individuals pressured to sleep in workplaces, gyms, or on the flooring of “filthy” cells.

As commissioner, Bethel stated Wednesday he would work to make law enforcement officials an important a part of communities, not simply enforcers of the legislation.

“I’m proud to be a cop,” he stated. “We’re not your enemy. We’re right here to serve, and I ask you to provide us that chance to do this. … Increase your voice when it must be raised, however let’s be a part of the neighborhood, let’s work with you.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior author for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, the place she covers Okay-12 colleges and early childhood schooling in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.