Police Officers in Schools - Helpful or Harmful?

Sarah Smith*

West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26504

Presentation Category: Behavioral & Social Sciences (Poster Presentation #73)

Student’s Major: Child Development and Family Studies

Little research has been done on the effectiveness of School Resource Officers (or SROs) since their position in American schools began rapidly increasing following the Columbine High School mass shooting in 1999, but almost everyone has an opinion on the necessity of their placements. Some individuals feel as though their SROs were friendly and gave them a positive experience with the police at a young age, but some found their SROs to be overbearing and making their schools feel like a pipeline directly to prison. This study aims to analyze the varying laws and policies to become a SRO in different states, how students of different ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and more had different experiences in their schools, and what is the best way to handle having police officers in our schools. The results of this study are still ongoing, but it has been found that students of historically marginalized communities typically reported less favorable experiences with their SROs, and SROs who engaged in exclusively reactive discipline instead of proactive discipline had higher rates of crime within their schools. It was also found that SROs were more likely to sexually assault children than standard police officers - seemingly indicating that some attempted to use their position to get more access to children. In my opinion, the School Resource Officer Program would benefit from a more standardized, nationwide training and application policy and more regulations specifying exactly what SROs can and cannot do.

Funding:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: My efforts were mainly voluntary.