School Resource Officers (SROs) have become a common fixture in schools across America, with about 14,000 SROs working in schools around America in 2011. There has been increased attention given to violence in schools, giving many the perception (albeit mistaken) that juvenile violence has been on the rise, which in turn has increased public support to the implementation of SROs. High schools have had SROs for quite some time now, but notably more middle schools and elementary schools are currently requesting SROs (James & McCallion, 2013). The National Association of School Resource Officers state that SROs contribute to schools by ensuring a safe and secure campus, educating students on law-related topics, and mentoring students as informal
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Researcher Price (2009) emphasizes that overall juvenile crime rates have been declining over the years, however SROs are increasing the numbers of juveniles passing through the criminal justice system, disproportionately impacting poor and minority communities. He points to the “get tough” perspectives on crime and media attention to crimes such as school shootings which gave the popular public perception that schools needed SROs. However, by the time that zero-tolerance policies reached schools, violence was subsiding within schools, demonstrating the disparity between perception and reality of crime. The increase of police in schools when school violence has dropped so dramatically has led to many negative outcomes. The most important of which has been the increase of criminalization of student’s behaviors, making minor infractions being dealt with by the police instead of school officials. The article points to the significant statistical support that SROs presence in schools make students lose respect for police and are far less likely to be “scared straight” (Price, 2009). Research also contradicts that police-student relations are bettered with the presence of SROs, findings showing that students think many of the security measures are unnecessary and express feeling powerless as result of the manner schools now hand down punishments (Bracy, 2011). Furthermore, Mystrol (2011) stated that very few …show more content…
I will concede, however, that research on both ends may not be completely solid, and that we are really in the infancy of figuring out the true impacts of SROs. I believe that this not only influences me, but is a societal issue as well. As more and more injustices due to policing come to light, adding SROs in the discussion is important, especially how it effects more vulnerable populations of students and uses old research (violence spiking in the 80’s) and rare instances of shooting to justify criminalizing minor infractions. I do not think hope is lost with SROs, just that their role has to be scrutinized and defined more thoroughly. We can either take the route of making SROs more specialized with a social work influence, or the route of training SROs purely in crisis intervention (ex. school shootings), and keep them out of every other facet of students lives. But to keep the current route and maintain SROs their current murky role, using them to enforce legal, harsh punishments for student’s minor wrongdoings would add to the injustices policing institutions already participate
Researcher Price (2009) emphasizes that overall juvenile crime rates have been declining over the years, however SROs are increasing the numbers of juveniles passing through the criminal justice system, disproportionately impacting poor and minority communities. He points to the “get tough” perspectives on crime and media attention to crimes such as school shootings which gave the popular public perception that schools needed SROs. However, by the time that zero-tolerance policies reached schools, violence was subsiding within schools, demonstrating the disparity between perception and reality of crime. The increase of police in schools when school violence has dropped so dramatically has led to many negative outcomes. The most important of which has been the increase of criminalization of student’s behaviors, making minor infractions being dealt with by the police instead of school officials. The article points to the significant statistical support that SROs presence in schools make students lose respect for police and are far less likely to be “scared straight” (Price, 2009). Research also contradicts that police-student relations are bettered with the presence of SROs, findings showing that students think many of the security measures are unnecessary and express feeling powerless as result of the manner schools now hand down punishments (Bracy, 2011). Furthermore, Mystrol (2011) stated that very few …show more content…
I will concede, however, that research on both ends may not be completely solid, and that we are really in the infancy of figuring out the true impacts of SROs. I believe that this not only influences me, but is a societal issue as well. As more and more injustices due to policing come to light, adding SROs in the discussion is important, especially how it effects more vulnerable populations of students and uses old research (violence spiking in the 80’s) and rare instances of shooting to justify criminalizing minor infractions. I do not think hope is lost with SROs, just that their role has to be scrutinized and defined more thoroughly. We can either take the route of making SROs more specialized with a social work influence, or the route of training SROs purely in crisis intervention (ex. school shootings), and keep them out of every other facet of students lives. But to keep the current route and maintain SROs their current murky role, using them to enforce legal, harsh punishments for student’s minor wrongdoings would add to the injustices policing institutions already participate