The purpose of this paper is to outline the history of school-based policing, namely, the deployment of School Resource Officers (SROs), and examine the evidence of this program's impacts on school safety and on students in the USA. We offer a review of the literature documenting the costs and effects of SROs in US schools. More than two decades of research have not yielded evidence that police enhance school safety, but it has repeatedly been documented that embedding police in schools results in serious harms to minoritized students, especially those who are Black, disabled, LGBTQ, or low income. This review of the research makes clear that SROs have not delivered school safety and have caused considerable harm to marginalized students. It must therefore be a priority of the new administration to end schools' reliance on law enforcement to manage the students in their care and reinvest in the proven support that school-based social work affords to our youth.
This study explored the social network properties and the correlates between social networks and subjective wellbeing of adults (N = 80) in a Housing First (HF) program. Using structured interviews, participants' social network properties were assessed. Bivariate correlations and backward multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the association between social networks and subjective wellbeing. Findings indicate a combination of years of homelessness, years in housing, frequency of contact, intimate relationship, and perceived social support significantly predicted subjective wellbeing (F (5, 74) = 2.74, p = 0.025). While perceived social support was positively associated with subjective wellbeing, frequency of contact was negatively associated with subjective wellbeing. It is recommended that service providers develop strengths-focused perspectives of the social networks of HF residents as potential contributors to subjective wellbeing.Service providers may need to pay more attention to HF residents with frequent contacts with network members, as they may have more distress.
School-based policing has become common practice, but there is limited qualitative research examining what meanings students make of police presence in their schools. This study sought to understand how students construct narratives of police presence in their schools based on their experiences with school resource officers (SROs). Drawing on constructivist grounded theory methodology with a sample of 17 students, this study found that students are continuously integrating multiple conflicting narratives about SROs: students experience SROs as an established yet ambiguous presence, which produces mixed feelings of reassurance, wariness, and intimidation. Students manage the conflicts between these narratives by positioning school-based police as a fixed structure with pitfalls and positives but no alternatives. Additionally, students experience SROs as being available to them in relational capacities. The primary recommendations from this study are for schools and communities to (1) reconsider the appropriateness of SRO programs with student perspectives at the center of dialogue, and (2) invest in non-law enforcement school-based professionals who students experience as available and relational.
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