Blurring the Lines

Tampa, Fla.

In a bungalow ringed by patrol cars on a residential street here, Albert London works with police to process a fresh batch of delinquents plucked from the streets on a sticky spring afternoon.A police officer summons up one teenager's criminal history from a bank of computers filled with court, police, and school records. Meanwhile, London, a school psychologist, calls a principal to inform him that one of his pupils, an accused car thief, will not be attending school the next day.

In this law-and-order state, school officials like London enjoy unprecedented access to juvenile records. That leeway can be traced chiefly to a Florida law that requires police to inform principals within 24 hours if one of their students is arrested for a serious crime. As a result of the law and a get-tough attitude, Hillsborough County has forged one of the nation's coziest school-police partnerships in a place where once turf-conscious agencies now...