Teens Learn Their Rights in Time to Exercise Them

For one group of New York City youth this fall, Monday afternoons have included an unusual digression from the typical schedule of classes and extracurricular activities: They meet for a course once a week in lower Manhattan to learn about their rights under the Constitution.

First offered over the summer, a seminar called "Surviving the Streets: Know Your Rights" has returned by popular demand from students who want to learn about the legal process and their place in it. Since these teenagers' public schools are heavily patrolled by NYPD safety agents and stories of troubling confrontations with them have emerged , it's no surprise that such a course is finding a passionate - if still relatively small - audience. Twenty students took the course over the summer, and 15 are currently enrolled at The Door, a youth services center on the edge of SoHo. They live in a city where such information might help them. A 2006 study performed by the RAND Corporation for the NYPD revealed that 9 of every 10 "stop and frisks" by police officers on the streets were performed on minorities. Young patrons of The Door are almost all minorities, most of whom hail from the city's five neediest zip codes.

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