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Following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others, and calls for defunding the police that arose in their wake, the issue of police in schools has received new attention. Several jurisdictions, including Oakland, CA, Denver, CO, and others have decided to remove police from schools, and many others have considered it. Too often, policy debates are based on individual experiences, anecdotes, or presumptions, rather than on rigorous evidence. This is unfortunate and unnecessary, since there is a growing body of research on the impact of school policing and School Resource Officers (SROs).*
Let's take a look at the research.
Two main claims made by proponents of increased policing are that school police and SROs can control and prevent crime among students, and prevent or thwart armed attacks on schools (i.e., school shootings). However, the existing evidence for officers increasing safety is mixed, at best, with strong evidence of unintended harmful consequences that come with policing programs, including thrusting students into the criminal justice system and perpetuating racial inequality.