School Safety or School Criminalization? The Typical day of A School Resource Officer in the United States

Abstract

School resource officers (SROs) have become increasingly common in schools in the United States and this growth of police in schools has taken place as part of a trend of school criminalization. In a school criminalization framework, scholars have focused on physical security measures and punitive outcomes for students, however, the subtler dimensions have been less explored. We draw on 26 interviews where SROs were asked to detail their typical day to investigate whether, and how, SROs criminalize school spaces through routine tasks. In spite of the multi-faceted roles of the SRO, the SROs in this study framed a typical day through a crime control logic where school spaces are criminogenic hotspots and the student body is ripe with potential offenders.

The thin blue line in schools: New evidence on school‐based policing across the U.S.

“…Finally, we have no way to disentangle the causal pathways through which SROs influence student offenses and disciplinary outcomes. We do not know, for instance, whether the increase in gun‐related incidents reflects changes in detection and reporting activities at the school or reflects criminogenic effects of SROs due to the escalating interactions with students (Higgins et al., 2022; Nolan, 2011). Given the low incidence of gun‐related offenses, this outcome is also most susceptible to influence from outlier values.…”

Cops on Campus: The Racial Patterning of Police in Schools

“…A key takeaway from these studies is the importance of distinguishing between a number of theoretical concepts (i.e., actual crime that takes place on school grounds, crime as reported by the school, crime as recorded in official police records, and the share of crimes that schools report to the police): these measures tend to have different relationships with the presence of SROs both within and across studies (Devlin and Gottfredson 2018; Owens 2017). Without observational data, it is difficult to draw conclusions about whether SRO presence does change the true incidence of student behaviors or simply changes the way behaviors are perceived, responded to, and recorded by adults (school- and law-enforcement based) through mechanisms like criminalization or net-widening (Devlin and Gottfredson 2018; Higgins et al 2022). Further, whether results linking SRO presence to a decrease in principal-reported crime simultaneously with increased police-recorded crime and increased arrest rates of children constitute positive SRO effects depends on one’s normative interpretation (Owens 2017).…”

Recommending Reform: A Critical Race and Critical Policy Analysis of Research Recommendations About School Resource Officers

“…These examples show a topical and directional alignment between the study’s focus, finding, and recommendations. Some articles found negative impacts from SROs, and thus recommended strategies to reduce their use (Crosse et al, 2022; Higgins et al, 2022).…”