ABSTRACT
Military generals running schools, students in uniforms, metal detectors, police presence, high-tech ID card dog tags, real-time Internet-based surveillance cameras, mobile hidden surveillance cameras, security consultants, chain-link fences, surprise searches-as U.S. public schools invest in record levels of school security apparatus they increasingly resemble the military and prisons. Yet it would be a mistake to understand the school security craze as merely a mass media spectacle in the wake of Columbine and other recent highprofile shootings. And it would be myopic to fail to grasp the extent of public school militarization, its recent history, and its uses prior to the sudden interest it has garnered following September 11.
