Legal socialization during adolescence: The emerging role of school resource officers

Abstract

Adolescence and later childhood are critical periods for developing attitudes toward legal authorities, a process known as legal socialization. Traditionally, scholars have understood contact with local police officers and experiences with the juvenile justice system to drive legal socialization. These interactions, and in particular how fair they are perceived to be, influence long-term views about the legitimacy of the legal system and future criminal behavior. In recent years, however, the potential for adolescent contact with police has increased exponentially through their presence in a new context: schools. In a survey of high schoolers, we explored how school-based police, school resource officers (SROs), function as an emerging nexus of legal socialization. We found that SROs' influence extends beyond school grounds: the more procedurally just students perceived SROs to be, the more they were willing to follow their directives and to obey police outside of school. Further, procedural justice perceptions of SROs were correlated with school climate outcomes, including self-reported academic success, anxiety, and identification with the school community. Our results speak to the connection between legal socialization and other developmental processes like community engagement and support expanding robust theories of legal socialization to consider arenas that intermingle legal and non-legal authority.

Fair Teachers, Fair Police? Assessing the Pathways between Perceptions of Teacher and Police Authority in Childhood and Adolescence

“…Ideally, perceptions of police legitimacy should also be measured at age 13 in order to estimate the strength of the direct "generalized" pathway against the indirect pathways. In addition, the current study only focused on the connection between teacher and police authorities, whereas previous research has shown that relationships with parents, peers, and other authorities during adolescence may be associated with attitudes towards the police (e.g., Cavanaugh & Cauffman, 2015;Granot et al, 2021;Kaiser & Reisig, 2017). Future research should examine whether and to what extent these experiences generalize to one another, and how do these effects play out over the life course.…”

The association between police officers in schools and students’ longer term perceptions of police as procedurally just

“…Research has not yet evaluated whether SROs influence longer term perceptions of police in general. As previous research suggests (Granot et al, 2021), SROs may serve as a key aspect of the legal socialization process as one of the earlier contacts youth have with the justice system. However, research thus far has only evaluated whether SROs affect perceptions of police outside of school at that same age.…”

“…Jackson (2002) examined a sample of 271 students from schools in Missouri and found that there was no relationship between the use of SROs and perceptions of police in general. Granot et al (2021) administered a survey to high-school students in the northeastern region of the United States to evaluate whether adolescent perceptions of SROs are related to their perceptions of law enforcement in the community. The findings revealed that perceptions of SROs were associated with the perceived legitimacy and willingness to comply with police in general.…”

“…The findings revealed that perceptions of SROs were associated with the perceived legitimacy and willingness to comply with police in general. Ultimately, Granot et al (2021) concluded that experiences with SROs contribute to the legal socialization of youth. Kupchik et al (2020) conducted focus groups with students in two districts and found some evidence that exposure to SROs may lead to more trust in police in general and sometimes results in students viewing the police in the community or on the news in a different light.…”

“…Critics argue that there are substantial problems with the use of SROs including ineffectiveness in reducing crime (Na & Gottfredson, 2013), the criminalization of minor offenses (Brown, 2006; Cook et al., 2010; Hirschfield, 2018; Kupchik, 2010), the use of aggressive tactics with students (Brown, 2006), and negatively influencing perceptions of the school environment and feelings of safety (Beger, 2002; Theriot & Orme, 2016). In addition, an increasingly important piece of this debate is how SROs may impact students’ perceptions of law enforcement and criminal justice authorities in general (Granot et al., 2021; Jackson, 2002). However, the body of literature assessing student perceptions of SROs is scant.…”