The United States Department of Justice defines school resource officers (SRO) as "sworn law enforcement officers responsible for the safety and crime prevention in schools". They are employed by a local police or sheriff's department and work closely with administrators in an effort to create a safer environment for both students and staff. The powers and responsibilities are similar to those of regular police officers, as they make arrests, respond to calls for service and document incidents.
SROs typically have additional duties, including mentoring and conducting presentations on youth-related issues. They are not school-based law enforcement officers, who are typically employed by a school district's law enforcement agency rather than local or city law enforcement, though the terms are often used interchangeably.
History United States
The first documented SRO was placed in a school in Flint, Michigan in 1953 as a community policing strategy. They strategized that placing police officers in school would improve the relationship between local police and youth. Flint, Michigan considered the program to be a success, and would become a model for future schools that would adopt the SRO program. Before the first documented SRO, the Los Angeles School Police Department formed their own adaptation of the program in 1948. It was developed to patrol and protect schools while neighborhoods began to desegregate. This is considered to be the first type of policing program in the United States.
After Flint, Michigan, municipalities across the nation implemented SRO programs with the goal of creating stronger community ties between police and the youth and to protect the safety of students. In 1966 The Chicago Police Department set a precedent for the new presence of policing in schools by establishing the first “Officer Friendly” program. Their movement served as an example for several policing programs that would follow including D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and G.R.E.A.T. (Gang Resistance Education and Training). However, these programs did not launch until the 1980s and 1990s. Fresno, California also created a new standard for school policing in 1968 to promote community relationships between the public and law enforcement.
The 1990s mark a period of substantial change to SRO programs in the United States. This change came about after the school shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 where 13 students were fatally shot by fellow peers, and Jonesboro Middle School in 1998 where four students and one teacher were fatally shot by fellow peers as well. These troubling instances raised concern about school safety leading to the most attention SRO programs had received in country history. Between 1999 and 2005, the federal government awarded more than $750 million to hire nearly 7,000 school resource officers across the country to tackle the new surge of school shootings. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of SROs in schools rose by approximately 6,700.
In more recent years, school shootings like Sandy Hook and the Parkland Massacre have continued to bring attention to the need for more safety in schools. This continued to incentivize the funding of SRO programs. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced a plan to prioritize federal grant application from law enforcement agencies that were looking to hire school resources officers. The rise of school shootings is one of the most obvious reasons for the increasing presence of SROs in schools across the nation, but it is not the only one. In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a rise in juvenile crime that also led to the expansion of the SRO program. In 1994 the Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act in fear of the juvenile and gang violence happening across the country. The passage of this act increased SRO presence as well.
Canada Like the United States, many secondary schools in Canada have hired security personnel to enhance the safety of staff and students. Major cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Vancouver and Winnipeg maintain their SRO programs offered by their local city police, alongside small rural towns mainly in the provinces of West Canada with their programs offered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police due to its rural nature. The SRO program in Vancouver is styled as the School Liaison Officer (SLO) Program. The City of Surrey also maintains its own SRO program, however like small rural towns is offered by the RCMP as it is its primary law enforcement agency in the city. This is set to change when the Surrey Police Service is fully implemented in November 2024, replacing the currently existing RCMP detachment in Surrey.
A SRO program used to exist in the city of Toronto. The Toronto SRO program was set up in 2008, with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB), in collaboration with the Toronto Police Service. The SRO Program was implemented by permanently placing armed, uniformed police officers in secondary schools. This program was later terminated in November 2017 by the school board.
The Ottawa Police Service and Peel Regional Police's SRO programs were also terminated by their respective school board in 2021 and in 2020 amidst the anti-police movement in the United States and Canada. Edmonton and Vancouver also had their SRO programs similarly terminated, but were later brought back citing the importance of these officers for the safety of students.
Purpose Different governments, school districts, and professional agencies have varied descriptions for the purpose of SROs. The National Association for School Resource Officers details the SRO's role as threefold: 1) as an educator, 2) as an informal counselor or mentor and 3) as a law enforcement officer. The United States Department of Justice includes the three prongs, and adds 4) an emergency manager or planner for a school or district. Johns Hopkins University's Center for Technology in Education aggregated SROs' job descriptions across the country and identified seven comprehensive purposes for an SRO, including 1) provide law enforcement and investigation, 2) develop crime prevention programs, 3) training and securing school personnel, 4) establish a working relationship with school and students, 5) develop classes related to the position, 6) assist students in conflict resolution, and 7) be a positive role model.
In addition, SROs' are managed by different institutions depending on their location. At school, most SROs are treated as staff and report to the principal or other school administrators. When not at school, they are often managed by a law enforcement agency.
Crime prevention Crime prevention is a major component of being an SRO. National Association of School Psychologists contends that properly trained SROs trained in threat assessment play a key role in a school's comprehensive safety planning and implementation.
The US Department of Education and Secret Service recommends all schools develop Threat Assessment Teams (consisting of an SRO or liaison officer, a principal and a mental health professional and/or counselor) on school-based threat assessment teams. This multidisciplinary approach to violence utilizes a team approach that meets together to offer different perspectives to help solve problems. The team's collaborative approach makes certain that each situation is carefully assessed so there is not under or over-reaction to a situation. The team should meet on a continuous basis for best communication. The team follows a decision-tree process to help determine if a threat made at the school is transient or serious. The multidisciplinary approach is preventive because it identities students that could be on the path to violence and intervenes to get them the wraparound services they could need to put them on a more positive path. Most threats are considered transient, however each and every threat must be properly assessed with the help of an SRO since the consequences can be so severe. Research from psychologists has shown these teams are the opposite of zero-tolerance and help to establish better school climates, reduce suspensions without racial bias, and help to prevent violence to both self and others. School resource officers play a key role as far as gathering information in identifying and monitoring a student for follow-up after a threat has been made. The most widely used Threat Assessment model for schools is the Virginia Threat Assessment Guidelines for K–12 schools. The model, tailored by psychologist Dewey Cornell, is evidence-based and has been tested in six controlled studies. The model always includes school-based law enforcement, most often an SRO. {Reference schoolta.com}
SECURe rubric The Safe School–based Enforcement through Collaboration, Understanding, and Respect (SECURe) rubrics were created through a partnership between the United States Department of Education and the Department of Justice. SECURe provides plans for initiating or improving SRO/law enforcement relationships with schools.
SECURe identifies five action items for schools and law enforcement agencies to collaborate on (quote):
Create sustainable partnerships and formalize Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) among school districts, local law enforcement agencies, juvenile justice entities, and civil rights and community stakeholders. Ensure that MOUs meet constitutional and statutory civil rights requirements. Recruit and hire effective SROs and school personnel. Keep SROs and school personnel well trained. Continually evaluate SROs and school personnel, and recognize good performance.
Outcomes Prominence In the 2015–16 school year, the following percentages of schools in the U.S.A. reported having one or more SROs at their school at least once per week:
77% of schools with 1000 or more students 47% of schools with 500–999 students 36% of schools with 300–499 students 24% of schools with fewer than 300 students
Overall, 42% of public schools host an SRO and an additional 10.9% host a sworn law enforcement officer, as of 2016. Towns (defined as a territory within an urban cluster) have the highest concentration of SROs as 57% of schools in towns host at least one SRO. This is compared to 45% of suburban schools and 36% of city schools. Almost a third of public schools that host an SRO are more than 80% black, while less than 42% of the schools that host an SRO are majority white. The majority of large schools in the US have some sort of security staff present.
Juvenile crime reduction It is difficult to tell if the presence of SROs is having an impact on the prevalence of crime in schools and communities, likely because it is difficult to show a causal relationship between the presence of law enforcement and crime rates. For example, in a 2018 study that compared Kentucky high schools that hosted an SRO to Kentucky high schools that did not, there was no statistically significant relationship between reported criminal violation rates and the presence of an SRO. However, a 2013 study that analyzed data across the United States found that schools that increase their use of police see an increase in reported crime.