School resource officer (SRO) programs were expanded to improve school safety, but limited research has assessed factors impacting students' perspectives on and intended utilization of SROs. We analyzed the relationships of students' experiences with law enforcement and school discipline with views and intended use of SROs. We used multilevel…

The social movement for #PoliceFreeSchools (and the adjacent campaign on college and university campuses called #PoliceFreeCampuses) welcomes an opportunity to reimagine school discipline and safety in contradistinction to current carceral forms. Scholars have moved away from notions of "school to prison pipeline" by demonstrating the…

When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, public safety departments at four-year institutions of higher education in the U.S. were vulnerable. This vulnerability was because of the limited time they had to initiate their pandemic response to help protect their campus communities, and the need to create or revise institutional emergency response…

This qualitative study explored essential characteristics attributed to highly effective School Resource Officers (SROs) as perceived by experienced Indiana high school principals. Through semi-structured interviews with five high school principals from Indiana, the study sought to identify key responsibilities, outcomes, proactive activities, and…

Increased attention has been given the safety of students and school staff members following highly publicized acts of violence within schools, including the mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in 2022, Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, and Columbine High School in 1999. In response to these tragic events, schools have implemented various…

While research consistently finds that increases in a school's SRO/police presence correspond with increases in the rate of school referrals of student disciplinary incidents to law enforcement agencies, direct evidence of distributional concerns across various student subgroups is scant. Drawing on data from the 2017-2018 School Survey on Crime…

The earliest School Resource Officer Programs in Canada date back to the 1970s. This study examines how police officers, teachers, school administrators, students, and journalists use a discourse of relationship-building between police and youth to frame School Resource Officers (SROs): who they are, the work they do, their roles in students'…

This fourth of six briefs analyzing data from the 2020-2021 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), released earlier this year, focuses on the experiences of students with disabilities with disciplinary practices at both charter schools and traditional public schools. Though the COVID-19 pandemic was still in its early stages, concerns about the…

School-based mental health professionals consistently report that they are either not prepared to support grieving students, or do not have time to integrate crisis intervention support into their hectic schedule. Given that inadequate school mental health services can increase a bereaved student's risk of developing emotional problems, it is…

Federal data show that many girls are struggling across almost all measures of well-being--including substance use, experiences of violence, mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Girls' well-being can be affected by their experiences in public schools, and the detrimental effects of removing students from the classroom for discipline…