I must have went to a much more dangerous school than you did then...we had cops on campus then too. But even then, the cops who patrolled our schools never had to beat me down...and lord knows I gave them a lot of lip and even more stubborn, idealistic backtalk. The kids are worse, yes...but so are the teachers and the police. It's a greek freakin tragedy of fail and fear.
Hmm, thinking about it, the two people I feared most were my dad and my wrestling coach. Today, the coaches and teachers have pretty much been defanged due to liability concerns...and lord knows a lot of these mutts don't even have dads, let alone a bad-ass dad like mine. There's some root causes for ya.