Policing in Schools

An uprising of activism and widespread protests against police brutality in the summer of 2020 have led to a renewed focus on the role, purpose and need for police in schools. The presence of police in schools has been felt in urban, predominantly Black and brown communities for decades and increased in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT. Massachusetts passed the Gun Violence Reduction Act in response to the shooting, which mandates that all school districts assign at least one "school resource officer" (SRO) per district. This led to a steady increase in the number of police assigned to work in schools, driven by fears of school shootings and a desire to protect students’ safety. 

However, proponents of racially equitable schools tell a different story. Many, including parent and student organizers, argue that the presence of police in schools has led to the increasing criminalization of young people, particularly young people of color, often for relatively minor offenses that were rarely viewed as warranting police intervention in the past.  They maintain that school policing has become a major feeder of the school-to-prison pipeline and is driven by the perception of Black and other youth of color as a threat rather than students to protect.

CfJJ supports and advocates for reforms to drastically reduce or eliminate the presence of police in our schools. Here are some reasons, as seen in our report, why:

There is little convincing evidence that the presence of an armed police officer has much effect on school safety at all.

  • A 2018 Washington Post analysis of nearly 200 incidents of gun violence on campus found only two times where an SRO successfully intervened in a shooting. The analysis also found that Latinx students are twice as likely and Black students are three times as likely as white students to experience gun violence in school.

There is considerable evidence that the presence of a police officer in schools increases school-based arrests for low-level, non-violent behaviors that have traditionally been the domain of school disciplinarians.

  • A 2020 longitudinal analysis data study concluded that “increasing SROs does not improve school safety and that by increasing exclusionary responses to school discipline incidents it increases the criminalization of school discipline.”

There is considerable evidence that Black and brown students and students with disabilities are disproportionately singled out for arrests and criminal citations for relatively minor school-based offenses.

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There is a growing body of research revealing that regular interactions with police officers, both in and out of school, have a harmful effect on students’ academic performance.  This is particularly true for Black students, who are more likely to exhibit signs of trauma as a result of these interactions.

  • A recent study found that “exposure to police violence leads to persistent decreases in grades, increased incidence of emotional disturbance and lower rates of high school completion and college enrollment for Black and Latino students.”

  • Another study noted that being stopped at school by police officers was a “potent” predictor of heightened emotional distress and post-traumatic stress symptoms in youth.  It also noted that the presence of guards and metal detectors in schools significantly increased students’ perceptions of fear.

  • According to an evaluation of the impact of federal school policing grants and educational outcomes: these grants are correlated with a 6% increase in middle school discipline of, mostly Black, students, a 2.5% decrease in high school graduation rates and 4% decrease in college enrollment rates

 The placement of police in schools can have a detrimental effect on overall school climate. This is especially true for Black and Latinx students, whose sense of safety is not increased by the presence of SROs.

  • A 2020 study found that school police placement led to increased reliance on surveillance, unreasonable search and seizure, inappropriate sharing of confidential information, activities to develop student informants in the school, and an emphasis on formal controls that create an environment of fear and distrust, reduced the perceived legitimacy of police, weakened the school’s sense of community, and diminished students’ willingness to confide in school staff when they are experiencing problems

  • In a 2018 survey of mostly Black students and other students of color in Los Angeles,  researchers found that 60% or more of Black students in the district did not believe that SROs were trustworthy or cared about them. Forty-five percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that police made them safer on campus; 73% found police overly aggressive and 67% said they tended to escalate situations rather than calming them down.