The History of School Policing

The origin of school policing programs can be traced back to the 1950s. Research indicates that the first assignment of a law enforcement officer to a school occurred in Liverpool, England, in 1951. In the early 1950s, the Flint Police Department in Michigan was the first known law enforcement agency in the United States to place an officer on a school campus full-time. The officer was tasked with deterring and responding to violent crimes on school grounds and working to foster a better relationship between local law enforcement and youth. The term “school resource officer” was not used to describe a law enforcement officer placed at a school until a Miami police chief coined the term in the 1960s.

Flint’s program led to the establishment of programs in other states such as Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina in the 1960s and early 1970s. By the 1970s, school districts sought to create their own police departments, due to legislation allowing districts to establish departments under their direction. During this time, just 100 SROs were reported to be scattered across 1 percent of U.S. school campuses.

School resource officer programs gained national legitimacy in 1973 with the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals’ support of their use. The commission recommended that law enforcement agencies annually conduct a presentation on the role of the law enforcement officer in society, and recommended that agencies with over 400 officers assign officers full time to senior and junior high schools in their jurisdiction. In the same decade, the Florida Legislature mandated that SROs be placed on all middle and high school campuses.

SRO programs got another boost when political scientist John Dilulio Jr. introduced the concept of the juvenile “super-predator” to the American consciousness amid the spread of broken windows policing, a concept that promoted policies designed to crack down on teenage drug use and violence in the mid-1990s. Despite teen crime and violence being on the decline throughout that decade, the perception of rising adolescent criminality only heightened the concern within school districts.

As a result, the number of law enforcement officers in schools skyrocketed. In 1991, the first national convention of school resource officers was held in Sarasota, Florida, and the inaugural board of National Association of School Resource Officers was established. By the mid-1990s, over 2,000 SROs had been placed on school campuses throughout the country – a 1,900 percent increase from the 1970s.

The passage of the Safe Schools Act of 1994 and the 1998 amendment to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 further incentivized the placement of law enforcement in schools by allowing the allocation of federal money for these programs. Fear of high-profile school shootings – such as the 1999 Columbine High School shooting – further fueled the expansion of these programs.

In recent decades, school resource officer programs have grown, particularly in urban school districts. In the early 2000s, Congress authorized the departments of Justice and Education to provide millions of dollars for the implementation of school policing programs in hundreds of communities – including $68 million from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Federal funding for school policing programs briefly declined after 2005, following the 2005 termination of the COPS’ Cops in Schools program, which

awarded federal grants for school security personnel, and the expiration of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act in 2009. Federal funding picked up again after the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The U.S. Department of Education noted a surge in the number of SROs in schools during the 2013-14 school year, and 42 percent of all public schools reported having a full or part-time school resource officer during the 2015-16 school year.

Within this climate, it appears these programs are more likely to expand than downsize.

The role of school resource officers

While one of the fastest growing areas of law enforcement is school policing, the role of law enforcement in schools is unclear. The duties, responsibilities, and titles of law enforcement vary across school districts, and stakeholders have yet to reach a consensus regarding their role.

SRO responsibilities are typically outlined in agreements between schools and law enforcement agencies often referred to as memoranda of understanding. Overall, the primary responsibility of officers on school campuses is law enforcement.

SROs, however, have been increasingly called upon to step outside of these duties and respond to school disciplinary incidents, resulting in unnecessarily harsh consequences for students. The growing involvement of SROs in disciplinary matters has been linked to increased arrests of students for minor misbehavior and disproportionate arrests of black students on school campuses.

The current state of school policing in Louisiana

Louisiana law defines a school resource officer as a “peace officer,” the duties of which include responding to crime, making arrests, and conducting searches and seizures. After Parkland, many Louisiana school districts attempted to expand school policing programs. Some parishes, including the following, succeeded:

Bossier Parish

After forming a committee with members of Bossier Parish School Board and community members to address school safety after Parkland, Bossier Parish Schools increased funding to add five SROs to its high schools in August 2018.

Lafayette Parish

In July 2018, Lafayette Parish School System tripled its funding for SROs. To afford the $4 million program, the school board reorganized the district’s central office and cut some positions.

St. Tammany Parish

St. Tammany Parish Public School System elected to have SROs at all 55 of its school campuses for the 2018-19 school year, costing $2 million to support this initiative, along with additional funding to provide mental health services in its schools. These measures arose from the school superintendent convening a group of parents, administrators, teachers and others to discuss security measures.

Some efforts were unsuccessful. In November 2018, Livingston Parish voters considered a $5.5 million sales tax proposal by the school district and local sheriff’s office, to place SROs on each Livingston Parish public school campus, and to provide these officers with equipment that included firearms and stun guns. The proposal failed as 56 percent of voters opposed it.

Through such referenda and discussions about SROs at school board meetings, Louisiana communities are engaged in the debate about law enforcement in schools and its impact on student safety – a debate whose importance has only been underscored by the Parkland shooting. Yet, this dialogue is occurring without the benefit of publicly reported – and accurate – data.