developed elaborate pass systems to control the movements of slaves, and schools for children in poverty often require all students outside of class to carry a pass issued by a teacher or authority. Slaveholders developed systems of patrol to prevent unauthorized movements and to return slaves to the plantations. Schools for students in poverty hire police, security officers, and “hall monitors” to patrol inside schools, demanding to see passes, and police daily arrive at schools with vanloads of truant students who have been apprehended for existing where they do not belong. Places of detention and humiliation, stocks and stockades, were established to confine difficult, unruly slaves. Schools for poor children have “in-school suspension” centers where disobedient students must sit all day, often forbidden to speak. The official, written policy in the school where I teach commands that students on “in-school suspension” must sit facing the wall, each young person forbidden to look at any other. The policy does not yet require students to be placed in physical stocks.
