School Resource Officer's Presence In Schools

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Since the 1990s, focus has been towards the protection of students and the faculty at schools due to school violence. There is a fear among the people whenever there is a school shooting. What factors can schools take to make schools a safe place to learn? This debate has been ongoing to either have School Resource Officers present or not, and if so, what will their focus be. Schools Resource Officer (SRO) has had an impact of their presence in schools. They have many different areas to perform their tasks, accordingly to (Document C), patrolling, investigating, handling, trying to minimize disruptions, and they are also in charged education students, and staffs on crime and violence prevention. The SRO is like role models for students …show more content…

Students who misbehave should be dealt with the school staff and the parent(s), not with law enforcement. Things like fighting; being disruptive, or talking back has little issues that should not involve the law or courts. Arresting a student and giving them a record, is not a good outcome for the student’s education, career, and life. There is a huge concern on the number of SROs in schools today. Instead of helping, they may actually be hurting by criminalizing student’s behavior. There are issues when it comes to disciplining student behavior such as talking back, fighting on school ground, or violating school code such as a dress code. For example, according to (Document C), a student was arrested for violating the school dress code; another was arrested and charged with a felony for stealing two dollars from another student. Now the one that was charged with the felony was a disabled student. These issues should and could have been handled between the school administration and the parent(s) of the …show more content…

The decision of placing school resource officers should be made on the school’s need, history, and demographics, not by the school’s location, which is what the present study that was conducted on. There is evidence that Black students are three times greater than White students to be expelled or suspension out of school, according to (Document B). This school has a 16.4% Black students suspension compare to White students. In a school of 16% Black student enrollment it still have a higher percentage rate of them being referred to law enforcement and school related

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