School Police Officers and the Criminalization of Student Behavior

Background and Purpose: Following a handful of high-profile incidents of lethal school violence in the 1990s, schools across the United States moved to implement numerous school security measures, including the use of high-tech security devices like metal detectors and surveillance cameras, student-driven peer mentoring programs, and school police officers (often called school resource officers or SROs). Despite this rapid expansion, however, there is serious concern that some strategies designed to make schools safer—particularly the growing number of police officers at schools—might actually criminalize student behavior and lead to a substantial increase in the number of school-based arrests since problematic students might be moved to the juvenile justice system rather than being disciplined at school. Such criminalization has the potential to negatively impact school climate and create tension between students, police officers and school personnel while also increasing the likelihood that arrested youths will drop-out of school and have future criminal justice system involvement.

Methods: To evaluate the impact of school police officers on school-based arrest rates, this study compares the number of arrests in three consecutive school years at 13 middle and high schools with an SRO and 15 schools without an SRO in one school district in the Southeastern United States. SROs in this district are assigned to schools based on a school's geographic location and not a school's need, history of violence, or demographics. Poisson and negative binomial regression are used to predict the total number of arrests at school and the number of arrests for specific charges while controlling for key school-level variables such as school size, attendance rate, racial composition, and poverty level.

Results: During the three school years, there were 1,012 arrests involving 878 different students at district middle and high schools. The most common charges were disorderly conduct (n = 438 arrests) and drugs (n = 236 arrests). Regression models show that having an SRO does not predict more total arrests but does predict more arrests for disorderly conduct when controlling for school-level variables. Conversely, having an SRO decreases the arrest rate for assault and weapons charges.

Conclusions and Implications: The results of this study yield mixed support for the hypothesis that school police officers criminalize student behavior. Specifically, having an SRO does not predict more total arrests; however, the presence of SROs does predict more disorderly conduct charges. A review of arrest petitions suggests the majority of these disorderly conduct episodes stemmed from class disturbances, insubordination towards teachers and school staff, and disruptive behavior in the school hallways or cafeteria. Given that disorderly conduct is the most subjective, situational, and circumstantial of the charges studied here, it is expected that many of these arrests can be avoided by efforts to improve the school environment, including enhanced communication between students, teachers, and officers as well as development of consistent guidelines for how behavior problems are handled and who handles them. As a liaison between students and school personnel, school social workers can play a critical role in reducing disruptive school arrests.