Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of school policing in the United States and critically examines variations in the roles and responsibilities school-based police officers assume across contexts. The author presents key research in support of school policing and research that reveals its negative consequences and unequal application based on race, social class, and disability status. The author concludes by offering recommendations on the roles school-based police officers should assume, if any, and suggests potential remedies for addressing inequalities in school disciplinary and policing practices.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press.
Barnum, M. (2016, March). These school districts have more police officers than counselors. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/school-district-security-guards_us_56faa11ae4b0143a9b4948d0. Retrieved on August 25, 2016.
Beger, R. (2003). The Worst of both Worlds: School security and the disappearing Fourth Amendment Rights of Students. Criminal Justice Review, 28(2), 336–354.
Bond, B. (2001). Principals and SRO’s: Defining roles. Principal Leadership, 1(8), 52–55.
Bracy, N. L. (2010). Circumventing the law: Students’ rights in schools with police. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(3), 294–315.
Briers, A. (2003). School-based Police Officers, What can the UK learn from the USA? International Journal of Police Science & Management, 5(I:2), 129–142.
Brown, J. (2005). Education on lockdown: The schoolhouse to jailhouse track. Washington, DC: Advancement Project.
Brown, B. (2006). Understanding and assessing school police officers: A conceptual and methodological comment. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34(6), 591–604.
Casella, R. (2003). Zero Tolerance policy in schools: Rationale, consequences, and alternatives. Teachers College Record, 105, 872–892.
City of New York, Mayor’s Leadership Team on School Climate and Discipline. (2015, July). Safety with dignity: Policy Recommendations from the Mayor’s Leadership Team on School Climate and Discipline. Mayor Bill De Blasio, New York City. http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/sclt/downloads/pdf/Safety-with-Dignity-Executive-Summary.pdf. Retrieved on August 30, 2016.
Coon, J. K., & Travis, L. F., III. (2012). The role of police in public schools: A comparison of principal and police reports of activities in schools. Police Practice and Research, 13(1), 15–30.
Devine, J. (1996). Maximum security: The culture of violence in inner-city schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ferguson, A. A. (2001). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Finn, P., & Mc Devitt, J. (2005). National Assessment of School Resource Officer Programs (Final Project Report. Document Number 209273).
Garland, D. (2002). The culture of control. Crime and social order in contemporary society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Harcourt, B. E. (2009). Illusion of order: The false promise of broken windows policing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hirschfield, P. J. (2008). Preparing for prison? The criminalization of school discipline in the USA. Theoretical Criminology, 12(1), 79–101.
Hossack, L., Hancock, P., Cotterill, B., MacNicoll, D., Lee, J., & Talbot, S. (2006). Mainstreaming safer school partnerships. London: U.K. Department for Education and Skills.
Irwin, K., Davidson, J., & Hall-Sanchez, A. (2013). The race to punish in American schools: Class and race predictors of punitive school-crime control. Critical Criminology, 21(1), 47–71.
James, N., & McCallion, G. (2013). School resource officers: Law enforcement officers in schools. Washington DC: Congressional Research Service.
James, R. K., Logan, J., & Davis, S. A. (2011). Including School Resource Officers in school-based crisis intervention: Strengthening student support. School Psychology International, 32(2), 210–224.
Jennings, W. G., Khey, D. N., Maskaly, J., & Donner, C. M. (2011). Evaluating the relationship between law enforcement and school security measure and violent crime in schools. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 11, 109–124.
Johnson, I. M. (1999). School violence: The effectiveness of a school resource officer program in a southern city. Journal of Criminal Justice, 27(2), 173–192.
Kim, C. Y., & Geronimo, I. (2010). Policing in schools: Developing a governance document for school resource officers in K–12 schools. Education Digest, 75(5), 28–35.
Klein, R. (2016, August). Set to Stun: Children are being Tasered by school-based police officers. No one knows how often it’s happening or what impact it’s having on students. Huffington Post. http://data.huffingtonpost.com/2016/school-police/tasers. Retrieved on August 25, 2016.
Kohler-Hausmann, I. (2014). Managerial justice and mass misdemeanors. Stanford Law Review, 66(3), 611–694.
Kupchik, A. (2009). Things are tough all over Race, ethnicity, class and school discipline. Punishment & Society, 11(3), 291–317.
Kupchik, A. (2010). Homeroom security: School discipline in an age of fear. New York, NYU Press.
Kupchik, A., & Monahan, T. (2006). The new American school: Preparation for post-industrial discipline. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27(5), 617–631.
Kupchik, A., & Ward, G. (2013). Race, poverty, and exclusionary school security: An empirical analysis of US elementary, middle, and high schools. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204013503890.
May, D. C., Fessel, S. D., & Means, S. (2004). Predictors of principals’ perceptions of school resource officer effectiveness in Kentucky. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(1), 75–93.
Mayer, M. J., & Leone, P. E. (1999). A structural analysis of school violence and disruption: Implications for creating safer schools. Education and Treatment of Children, 22, 333–356.
McCarthy, J. D., & Hoge, D. R. (1987). The social construction of school punishment: Racial disadvantage out of universalistic process. Social Forces, 65(4), 1101–1120.
McGuinn, P. (2014). The federal role in educational equity. In D. Allen & R. Reich (Eds.), Education, justice, and democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McKenna, J. M., Martinez-Prather, K., & Bowman, S. W. (2016). The roles of school-based law enforcement officers and how these roles are established a qualitative study. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 27(4), 420–443.
Mosendz, P. (2015, October). FBI, Justice Department will investigate spring valley high school video of police officer flipping student. Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/authorities-request-fbi-justice-department-investigation-spring-valley-high-387600. Retrieved on August 22, 2016.
Na, C., & Gottfredson, D. C. (2013). Police officers in schools: Effects on school crime and the processing of offending behaviors. Justice Quarterly, 30(4), 619–650.
Nelson, L., Leung, V., & Cobb, J. (2016, October). The right to remain a student: How California school policies fail to protect and serve. The American Civil Liberties Union of California. https://www.aclusocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Right-to-Remain-a-Student-ACLU-CA-Report.pdf. Retrieved on December 13, 2016.
Newman, K. S. (2004). Rampage: The social roots of school shootings. New York: Basic Books.
Nolan, K. (2011). Police in the hallways: Discipline in an urban high school. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Nolan, K. (2015). Neoliberal common sense and race-neutral discourses: A critique of “evidence-based” policy-making in school policing. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(6), 894–907.
Ofer, U. (2011). Criminalizing the classroom: The rise of aggressive policing and zero tolerance discipline in New York City Public Schools. New York Law School Law Review, 56, 1373.
Patterson, G. T. (2007). The role of police officers in elementary and secondary schools: Implications for police-school social work collaboration. School Social Work Journal, 31(2), 82–99.
Petrosino, A., Guckenburg, S., & Fronius, T. (2012). Policing schools’ strategies: A review of the evaluation evidence. Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 8(17), 80–101.
Robers, S., Zhang, A., Morgan, R. E., & Musu-Gillette, L. (2015). Indicators of school crime and safety: 2014 (NCES 2015-072/NCJ 248036). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
Schuiteman, J. G. (2001). Second annual evaluation of DCJS funded school resource officer programs. Report of the Department of Criminal Justice Services, Fiscal Year 1999–2000.
Simon, J. (2007). Governing through crime: How the war on crime transformed American democracy and created a culture of fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Skiba, R., & Peterson, R. (1999). The dark side of zero tolerance: Can punishment lead to safe schools? The Phi Delta Kappan, 80(5), 372–382.
Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34(4), 317–342.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2015). SPLC wins lawsuit challenging use of pepper spray in Alabama school district. Montgomery, Alabama. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2015/10/01/splc-wins-lawsuit-challenging-use-pepper-spray-alabama-school-district. Retrieved on December 13, 2016.
Theriot, M. T. (2009). School resource officers and the criminalization of student behavior. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(3), 280–287.
Thurau, L. H., & Wald, J. (2009). Controlling partners: When law enforcement meets discipline in public schools. New York Law School Law Review, 54, 977.
Toronto Police Service, Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board (2009). School Resource Officer Program. 2008/2009 Evaluation. October. Accessible online at www.torontopolice.on.ca/media/text/20091118-sro_evaluation_program.pdf
U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. (2014). Civil rights data collection: data snapshot (school discipline). Washington DC.
Umphrey, J. (2009). Policce partners: A Qand A with Kevin Quinn. Principal Leadership. 9(5), 46–48.
Weiler, S. C., & Cray, M. (2011). Police at school: A brief history and current status of school resource officers. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 84(4), 160–163.
Welch, K., & Payne, A. A. (2010). Racial threat and punitive school discipline. Social Problems, 57(1), 25–48.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nolan, K. (2018). Policing Student Behavior: Roles and Responsibilities. In: Deakin, J., Taylor, E., Kupchik, A. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71559-9_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71559-9_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71558-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71559-9
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)