Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 66
Police in Schools?
Best Practices for
Keeping Students Off
the School-to-Prison
Track
In recent decades, law enforcement officers have
had an increasingly routine presence on K-12 school
campuses. 68 Between 1997 and 2007, the number
of school resource officers (SROs) on campuses
nationwide increased by 38 percent.69 Unfortunately,
in a number of school districts, the presence of
SROs has led to high rates of citations and arrests
among students of color and for behaviors formally
addressed in school without police.70
The impact of such arrests on students is profound:
one arrest doubles a youth’s chance of dropping
out, even if the youth is not ultimately convicted
of a crime.71 National reports show that police
contact with young people is also a strong predictor
of whether a student will have to repeat a year
or will end up in the juvenile or criminal justice
system.72 Researchers have also found that excessive
68 Raymond, Barbara, Assigning Police Officers to Schools, The Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services for the U.S. Department of Justice,
Police-Oriented Guides for Police Response Guides Series, No. 10, 1,
33 (2010) (“Since 1999, the COPS Office has awarded over $750 million
to more than 3,000 grantees resulting in the hiring of more than 6,500
SROs.”)
69 Bureau of Justice Statistics, Law Enforcement Management and
Administrative Statistics, “Local Police Departments, 1997,” “Local Police
Departments, 2000,” “Local Police Departments, 2003,” and Local Police
Departments, 2007,” http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.
cfm?ty=tp&tid=71.
70 Theriot, T. Matthew, School Resource Officers and the Criminalization
of Student Behavior, Journal of Criminal Justice: 37, 280-287 (2009); see
also Dawood, Noor, Reorienting School Policing: Strategies for modifying
school policing objectives to reduce unintendend consequences, while
preserving unique benefits, Goldman School of Public Policy, 28 (2011)
(negative consequences associated with placing officers in a mentoring
role on campuses include more student arrests).
71 Sweeten, Gary, Who will graduate? Disruption of High School Education by Arrest and Court Involvement, 23 Justice Quarterly 462, 473, 77
(2006).
72 Petteruti, Amanda, Education under Arrest: The Case Against Police
in Schools, Justice Policy Institute (2011) (available at justicepolicy.org);
Petteruti, Amanda, A Lasting Effect, Justice Policy Institute (2011) (available at justicepolicy.org); American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Div.,
Think Before You Plea: Juvenile Collateral Consequences in the United
States (available at beforeyouplea.com/ca); Weissman, Marsha, et al., The
Use of Criminal History Records in College Admissions (2010) (available at
64 How we can fix school discipline
and inappropriate reliance on school-based law
enforcement can actually promote disorder and
distrust in schools instead of increasing order
and safety.73 In recent guidance, the United States
Departments of Justice and Education (U.S. DOJ &
DOE) made it clear that:
Schools cannot divest themselves of responsibility
for the nondiscriminatory administration of
school safety measures and student discipline
by relying on school resource officers, school
district police officers, contract or private security
companies, security guards or other contractors,
or law enforcement personnel. To the contrary, the
Departments may hold schools accountable for
discriminatory actions taken by such parties.74
Unfortunately, many schools do not even track
when students are referred to police while on
school campus or at school activities. Other
districts rely heavily on police but don’t create any
parameters or guidelines for their involvement,
which can lead to unnecessary police involvement
and a “pre-prison” culture for students.75 The U.S.
DOJ and DOE recently issued recommendations
for minimal practices to prevent discrimination
related to school police involvement, which
include formalizing roles of SROs in policy and
Memorandum of Understanding, ensuring that
school site administrators understand that they are
responsible for discipline, not police, and monitoring
and tracking police interventions.76
Communities, parents, and students are also calling
for reforms. And, some school districts and police
departments in California are changing course so
that students are not unnecessarily caught up in the
criminal justice system in the name of school
communityalternatives.org).
73 Cook, Phillip J., Gottfredson, C. & Na, Choongmin, School Crime Control and Prevention, 39 Crime & Just. 313, 372 (2010), Meyer, Matthew J.
& Leone, Peter E., A Structural Analysis of School Violence and Disruption: Implications for Creating Safer Schools, 22 Education and Treatment
of Children 333, 352 (1999); Beger, Randall R., The Worst of Both Worlds,
28 Crim. Just. Rev. 336, 340 (2003); Nolan, Kathleen, Police in the Hallways: Discipline in an Urban High School 53 (2011); Gottredson, Gary, et
al, School Climate Predictors of School Disorder: Results from a National
Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, 42 Journal of Research
and Crime and Delinquency 412, 433 (2005) (finding students rate their
schools higher on scales of student delinquency and victimization when
they report unfair implementation of arbitrary rules).
74 United States Departments of Justice and Educations, Dear Colleague
Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline,
(1/8/2014) (citing 34 C.F.R. § 100.3(b)(1), (2)) (available at http://www.
justice.gov/crt/about/edu/documents/dcl.pdf).
75 See supra fn. 6.
76 Id., Appendix, 4.