Purpose: The overall purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine sworn police officer presence, activity, and types of weapons carried and policies that govern sworn police officers by school level. In the first study, the degree to which differences were present in sworn police officer presence (i.e., while students are arriving…

In this brief, Research for Action examines the prevalence of school policing in Pennsylvania schools. While data on police presence is limited, this brief is able to examine: (1) race/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in school police staffing and spending; (2) race/ethnic disparities in referrals to law enforcement and school-based arrests by…

This is the executive summary for the report, "Is California Doing Enough to Close the School Discipline Gap?" In California, a combination of statewide and local efforts has been implemented to reduce the use of punitive suspensions in public K-12 schools. Current state data trends reflect these efforts, showing that far fewer students…

This research provides a unique seven-year trend analysis indicating that, while California has seen a decline in the use of suspensions in schools prior to the pandemic, the pace of the decline has slowed and large racial disparities in suspension rates remain. The research supports renewed advocacy efforts to eliminate schools' use of security…

This report provides nationally representative data on public school safety and discipline for the 2013-14 school year. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) previously collected data on this topic in the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), which was last conducted in the 2009-10 school year (Neiman 2011). This report presents…

School resource officers (SROs) are police officers responsible for the daily task of keeping schools safe. The extent to which this goal is achieved depends in part on how SROs identify, assess, and respond to student threats of violence. This task is complicated by the lack of knowledge regarding the most effective ways of handling a threat so…