Perceptions of School Resource Officers: Protectors or Prosecutors * ?

Abstract

Since the 1990s there has been a significant rise in the number of police officers in schools. There have been growing concerns regarding the effects of school resource officers (SRO) on students’ long-term outcomes and whether or not they are an effective aspect of school safety. Public opinion, especially among key stakeholder groups, impacts policy and practice decisions, and, therefore, there is a need to examine and synthesize the current state of the literature on stakeholder perceptions of SROs. We conducted a systematic review of the literature regarding student, teacher, principal, parent, and SRO perceptions of the role and effectiveness of SROs. The findings across thirty-one publications suggest that key stakeholder groups largely report SROs as a positive presence within schools. Findings are mixed across studies, however, and key differences in perceptions of law enforcement among important school stakeholder populations are discussed.

Keywords

systematic review school resource officers school-to-prison pipeline perceptions school safety

Introduction

The presence of police officers in schools has become commonplace in recent decades, largely in response to high profile school shootings and on the heels of a spike in youth violence in the early 1990s (James & McCallion, 2013). Research over the last decade, however, has highlighted the potential for school disciplinary practices to have long-term negative consequences on youth, especially those that lead to exclusionary (e.g., out of school suspension, expulsion) or punitive legal responses (e.g., arrest; Skiba et al., 2014). Studies have indicated that the presence of a school resource officer (SRO) increases the likelihood that students will be disciplined and arrested for offenses that were once resolved through non-legal means by school staff and administration (Bleakley & Bleakley, 2018; Chan et al., 2019; Na & Gottfredson, 2013). These legal responses to student misbehavior have been described as having long-term negative consequences on life course development, including an increased risk of school dropout, arrest, and incarceration; a process commonly referred to as the school-to-prison-pipeline (Bleakley & Bleakley, 2018; Owens, 2017; Theriot, 2009). An example of the school-to-prison-pipeline is as follows: schools with overly punitive or zero tolerance policies use SROs or other police to respond to student misbehavior. Officers then arrest the students, and this arrest creates a precedent where the student is officially labeled as problematic. Further misbehavior and arrests only enhance the idea among school staff and law enforcement that this student is a criminal, and they begin to treat the student as such. Subsequent to their arrest, the student may drop out of school, which puts them at high risk for future unemployment and further increases the risk of criminal behavior.

It was this process, and the possibility of long-term negative consequences associated with the presence of law enforcement in schools, that has recently led school officials in Portland, Denver, Oakland, and Minneapolis to no longer include law enforcement in their public schools for the foreseeable future (Balingit et al., 2020). Similarly, Seattle public schools moved to suspend the use of SROs in their schools for a year (Balingit et al., 2020; Yu, 2020). As indicated in a tweet by the superintendent of Portland Public Schools Guadalupe Guerrero, one of the primary reasons for school officials to move away from using SROs in their schools is a desire to replace the traditionally punitive role of police officers with counselors and social workers who would act in ways more consistent with restorative practices (Yu, 2020).

Despite calls for reinvestment in alternative official responses to student misbehavior (e.g., through social workers and school psychologists; American Civil Liberties Union, 2022) and the removal of SROs from several prominent school districts, there are still those who believe police are essential to school safety (Balingit et al., 2020). This presents researchers and policymakers with an interesting conundrum: while there is an apparently growing proportion of the U.S. public losing confidence in police officers as a whole, and research has documented reason for concern with respect to the impact of SROs on student development through their use of punitive disciplinary practices, several school stakeholder groups still feel that police in schools are an important aspect of school safety. Research suggests that as long as public support for SROs as a school safety measure is high, policymakers and local school officials are likely to continue using police officers in school (Pickett, 2019), even in the face of high costs (Burton et al., 2021), suggesting a systematic understanding of stakeholder perceptions of SROs is important.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of the recent scientific literature regarding perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs among a number of stakeholders (students, teachers, principals/administrators, parents, and SROs) in order to document how these key groups have come to understand the role of police in schools. This is important because if SROs are perceived to be an effective or necessary component of school safety by a majority of stakeholders, removing them from schools may have unintended negative consequences on those most immediately impacted by their presence. In particular, the removal of SROs may lead students and staff to feel less safe, which can negatively impact their educational experience and performance (Wang et al., 2020). Conversely, if SRO presence is viewed as associated with negative outcomes by key stakeholders, the presence of an SRO may have negative consequences (e.g., feelings of fear or alienation among students who distrust the police) that would not exist if alternatives to police were used. This paper explores the similarities and differences in perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs between school administrators, staff, students, teachers, parents and the SROs themselves. It will begin with a review of the history of SROs, then move to a systematic review of the most recent literature (post-2010) regarding perceptions of the role and effectiveness of SROs. It will also discuss the major gaps that currently exist in the perceptions of SRO literature as well as recommendations for future research. It will conclude with a discussion of the complex and multi-faceted nature of the work of SROs, the perceived benefits and disadvantages for how the presence of SROs in schools may influence perceptions of law enforcement more broadly, and recommendations for how SROs might be used to better suit the needs of multiple stakeholders.

History of SROs

According to two sources, the first SRO program began in Flint, Michigan in the 1950s (Ryan et al., 2018; Weiler & Cray, 2011). The “Police School Liaison'' program was a partnership between the Flint Police Department and Flint schools meant to address growing concerns about increasing rates of juvenile delinquency. The program consisted of a single police officer per school, whose responsibilities were the same of many SROs today. These responsibilities included ensuring the safety of the students, counseling students, and fostering positive relationships between students and law enforcement (Noble, 2017). It appeared to have the desired effect for Flint schools, as in the years after the adoption of the Police School Liaison program the rates of reported juvenile crimes in the city dropped, despite increases in the national juvenile delinquency rate (Noble, 2017). Years later, in 1968, the city of Fresno, California would also implement their own SRO program. The initial purpose of the Fresno school officer program was to foster positive relationships between students and law enforcement; however, similar to the city of Flint this purpose would grow to also include investigating crimes that occurred between students (Bleakley & Bleakley, 2018).

In spite of the early implementations of police officers in schools in the cities of Flint and Fresno, many schools across the country did not incorporate police officers into schools until the 1990s. This explosion of SROs was the result of a number of high-profile school shootings that occurred in the 1990s as well as the rising crime rate (James & McCallion, 2013; Ryan et al., 2018; Theriot, 2009; Weiler & Cray, 2011). One of the major contributing factors to the rise of police officers in schools is the rise in federal funding for SROs. The Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act in 1994 created funds for schools to implement SROs as a means of combating drugs and violence in schools. Following the Columbine school shooting in 1999, Congress began allocating federal funds for SROs under the COPS in Schools Program to provide schools with protection from school shootings (James & McCallion, 2013). At its height from 2000 to 2002, Congress allocated $180 million to the COPS in Schools Program which funded over 7,000 SROs across the country (James & McCallion, 2013). Originating in the mid-1990s, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office was created by the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The COPS office was, and is, responsible for distributing federal grant money to law enforcement for the purpose of hiring officers, increasing technological capabilities of law enforcement and more (Zhao, Scheider, & Thurman, 2002). More recently, in 2013 there was another federal push for more SROs (with an accompanying increase in availability of funding grants) following the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary (Theriot & Orme, 2016). Interestingly, this increase in SROs across the country took place as the national rates of school violence and victimization were actually dropping (James & McCallion, 2013).

Currently, the role that an SRO plays largely depends on the officer, the school district, and their shared goals. The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), a professional SRO organization which publishes training and standards for SROs, states the purpose of a successful SRO program is “to bridge the gap between law enforcement and youth. This purpose is best accomplished by using the TRIAD model: Law enforcement, Teacher, and Informal Counselor” (Canady, 2018, p. 5). Although professional organizations such as NASRO provide schools and SROs with training and education, there is no standard for SRO training at the national level and state laws outlining SRO training exist in only 11 states (Ryan et al., 2018). As a result, the amount and quality of training of SROs can differ greatly between states and even between schools.

Current Study

Due to the rise in the number of police officers in schools since the 1990s, combined with more recent concerns regarding their effects on student’s long-term outcomes, there is a distinct need to examine and synthesize the current state of SRO literature in order to better understand whether school stakeholders still perceive SROs as an important aspect of school safety. Specifically, do stakeholders’ views align with those members of the public who are becoming increasingly skeptical of police officers as a whole or do SROs represent a unique subgroup of police that do not necessarily receive the same criticisms as those who police outside schools? The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature regarding students, teachers, principals/administrators, parents, the general public, and SRO perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs to help better understand how they feel about police in schools. Two previous reviews of SRO literature have examined the effectiveness of SROs at reducing school crime (see Hirschfield, 2018; Petrosino et al., 2012), but fell short of specifically targeting articles that examined perceptions of SROs roles or effectiveness from each school stakeholder group. Of these studies, only one described a systematic method of reviewing articles (Petrosino et al., 2012). A prior meta-analysis on the impact of SRO presence on the use of exclusionary discipline (see Fisher & Hennessy, 2016) served as both a template for guiding the methods and search process for this systematic review, but again was distinct from this review in its focus on the impact of SROs on school discipline.

A recent systematic review of SROs by Javdani (2019) focused on the roles, training, and impact of SROs. Despite there being overlap in the articles covered in this prior systematic review and ours, there are important distinctions in the aims of these reviews. Javdani (2019) focused on the roles that SROs occupy and the training (or lack thereof) they receive and gives recommendations on how best to integrate the two in a way that minimizes negative impacts on students. While our systematic review does include literature on the roles of SROs, it is with the intent of understanding how stakeholders, including SROs themselves, perceive the roles of SROs rather than how they might best be trained to fulfill a particular role. Our focus on understanding the roles and effectiveness of SROs from each stakeholder’s point of view is an area which previous systematic reviews have not yet addressed but is especially important given the role of public perceptions in shaping policy and practice (Pickett, 2019).

Method

Eligibility Criteria

For studies to be eligible for inclusion in the systematic review they had to first meet several criteria. First, the studies had to contain data pertaining to the effects of the presence of a SRO. Second, since the purpose of this study was to identify a large number of studies for review, studies were not excluded based on whether or not the study included a comparison group. Third, both qualitative and quantitative studies were included in the systematic review. Fourth, studies that only included security guards and other school security personnel were not eligible for inclusion in the study. That is, only studies that examined the use of sworn law enforcement officers were included. Finally, since this systematic review was primarily focused on finding research that had not yet been published in another meta-analysis/systematic review, studies had to be published in the year 2010 or newer.

Search Process

The search process for this study was conducted between August and December of 2020. Our study builds upon the methods, databases and search process used by Fisher & Hennessy (2016). The study identification process consisted of electronically searching the ERIC, IBSS, PAIS International, ProQuest Criminal Justice, ProQuest Education Journals, ProQuest Psychology Journals, ProQuest Social Science Journals, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Social Service Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, and Pro-Quest Dissertation & Theses for works that included the keywords ‘‘school resource officer’’ OR ‘‘school resource officers’’ OR ‘‘resource officer’’ OR ‘‘resource officers’’ OR “SRO” OR “SROs” OR “SRO’s” (Fisher & Hennessy, 2016, p. 221). Google Scholar was also used with the same keyword searches to discover any articles that might otherwise have been missed by the other searches. When an article was identified from the search, the title and abstracts of the articles were read to determine if the article should be included in the systematic review. Studies which did not include any reference to the presence of an SRO in their article were excluded from this review. Five pages of articles were reviewed before it was determined that our search was exhaustive. Studies were then organized into categories based on their focus areas. Focus areas were created based on initial coding of the major themes of the studies identified. These areas would be refined throughout the categorization process by two different researchers. These categories were not mutually exclusive and at the end of the review included 9 topics: perceptions and attitudes regarding SROs (31 documents), training and roles of SROs (26 documents), SROs and disciplinary practices at school (18 documents), the effect of SROs on violence prevention (16 documents), crime reporting at schools with SROs (13 documents), SROs and the school-to-prison pipeline (12 documents), literature reviews of SROs (11 documents), legal issues with SROs (5 documents), and others (33 documents). These nine categories are described in detail in Appendix A. When the final sample of studies was identified, they were read in their entirety by the authors for analysis purposes. Once the author(s) felt that they understood the study adequately, the studies and their major conclusions were combined into their respective categories based on the stakeholder population being studied. This process of reading and summarizing each of the studies is how the literature for this systematic review was analyzed and how the results were produced (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Identification and screening process of literature on school resource officers.

Sample

For this systematic review, the studies which fell under the category of “perceptions and attitudes regarding SROs” will be examined. This category includes studies where respondents were asked their opinion regarding whether SROs were necessary or useful, whether they liked their SRO, whether they felt safe with their SRO, their perceptions regarding the roles of SROs (what their job entails), and whether SROs are helpful in maintaining a safe school environment. These studies measured participant’s attitudes and beliefs about SROs, rather than behavioral outcomes. The target stakeholder population studied varied across articles and included students, teachers, principals/administrators, parents, the SROs themselves, and the general public.

Importantly, there was no exclusion criteria based on methodological rigor or demographic composition of the sample in the respective studies. If an article met the criteria previously listed, it was included in the study. Two studies in this manuscript include samples of college students, however they were specifically asked to recall their experiences with SROs while they were seniors in high school (see Kim, 2014 and Maybury, 2017).

For the thirty-one studies identified under the “perceptions and attitudes” category, SROs and students were the most popular stakeholder groups sampled (10, respectively), followed by teachers (7), principals/administrators (6), parents (2), and members of the general public (1). Twelve of the thirty-one studies utilized qualitative interviews as the method of data collection, with five of these studies involving interviews of SROs. The remaining nineteen studies utilized surveys as their method of data collection, with the sample sizes ranging from 34 respondents to 31,156 respondents. Dissertations/theses made up more than half of the total studies identified by the systematic review (23 total), and of those, 9 were dated before 2015. Of the 8 published articles only 1 was published before the year 2015. We proceed by discussing this body of work by stakeholder groups, starting with SROs themselves, and finishing with the least studied group, the general public. Table 1 is provided to offer basic descriptive data on factors such as methodological rigor, sample size, stakeholder group included, location, race/ethnicity of the sample, age of the sample, and sex composition of the respondents across all studies.

Table 1.

Summary of Articles.

Publication	Rigor	Sample Size	Stakeholder	Location	Race & Ethnicity	Age/Grade	Sex
Barnes (2016)	1	12	SROs	North Carolina	None Reported	None Reported	10 Male 2 Female
Barrans (2010)	2	36 Teachers 3 Teaching Assistants 2 Counselors 1 Head Secretary	Teachers Principal/Admin.	Ottawa, Canada	83% European Descent	Adults	36% Male 64% Female
Bauer (2017)	1	88*	SROs Teachers	Pennsylvania (Bucks County and Montgomery County)	None Reported	66% under 45	44% Male 56% Female
Bennett (2016)	1	10	SROs	United States	None Reported	None Reported	None Reported
Bracy (2011)	1	10	Students	Mid-Atlantic United States	None Reported	High School	None Reported
Carpenter (2013)	1	61	SROs	Texas	74% White 13% Black 10% Hispanic 3% Other	25–75	79% Male 21% Female
Chrusciel et al. (2015)	1	1,086 Principals	Principal/Admin.	South Carolina	None Reported	None Reported	None Reported
Cook (2019)	1	20	Parents	Washington, DC Maryland Virginia	95% Black	21 +	Majority Female
Cooper (2020)	1	31,156	Students	Kentucky	13% Non-White	6–12 Grade	49% Male 51% Female
Davis (2016)	1	115 Students 51 Teachers 11 School Safety Officials	Students Teachers SROs	Northeast United States	Teachers = 32% Black 24% White 24% Hispanic 8% Other Students = 67% Hispanic 25% Black 8% Other	Teachers = 18–64 Students = 9–12 Grades	Teachers = 49% Male 49% Female Students = 53% Male 47% Female
Dit Lapointe (2016)	2	193	Teachers	Jackson, Mississippi	54% White 35% Black 9% Other 1% Hispanic	None Reported	23% Male 77% Female
Donnell (2016)	1	200	Students	Nashville, Tennessee	43% Hispanic 21% Black 17% White 14% Other 6% Asian	27% Freshman 29% Sophomore 19% Junior 30% Senior	53% Male 48% Female
Gravitt (2017)	1	28 SROs 37 Admins.	SROs Principal/Admin.	Georgia	None Reported	SROs = 75% 40 and under 25% over 40 Admin. = 35% 40 and under 65% over 40	SROs = 79% Male 21% Female Admin. = 81% Male 19% Female
Horner (2013)	1	156	Students	Midwest United States	None Reported	70% Seniors 30% Juniors	49% Male 51% Female
Johnson (2010)	1	150 Students 150 Parents 31 Teachers	Students Parents Teachers	1 Urban Middle School	Students = 71% White 19% Black 10% Other Parents = 71% White 14% Asian 9% Black 6% Other Teachers = 94% White 3% Black 3% Hispanic	Students = 50 6th Grade 50 7th Grade 50 8th Grade Teachers = 19% 6th Grade 23% 7th Grade 29% 8th Grade 29% Mixed Grade Level Instruction	Students = 57% Male 43% Female Parents = 33% Male 67% Female Teachers = 23% Male 77% Female
Joyner (2015)	1	13	Teachers	Rural US School District	None Reported	Mean = 43	100% Female
Kim (2014)	2	436	Students	United States	52% White 30% Hispanic 12% Black 6% Other	18–20	25% Male 75% Female
Maybury (2017)	1	484	Students	Central Texas	41% White 20% Black 16% Hispanic 8% Other	52% 18–32 48% 33–63	37% Male 63% Female
Myrstol (2011)	1	4,702	General Public	Anchorage, Alaska	79.9% White 5.7% Hispanic 4.7% AI/AN 4.2% Asian 2.8% Black 1% PI 0.9% 2 + Races 0.8% Other	2.9% 18–24 14.2% 25–34 19.7% 35–44 26.6% 45–54 23.4% 55–64 13.2% 65 +	45.3% Male 54.7% Female
Pentek & Eisenberg (2018)	1	126,868	Students	Minnesota (City, Suburb, Town, Rural)	69.2% White 9.6% Hispanic 7.4% 2 + Races 6.4% Black 6.2% Asian/PI 1.2% AI	8, 9, & 11 Grades	50.5% Male 49.6% Female
Rante (2018)	1	8 SROs 2 Guidance Counselors	SROs Principal/Admin.	Southeast Region of the United States	None Reported	21 + years old	None Reported
Rhodes (2015)	1	52	SROs	Midwestern Region of the United States	82% White 18% Other 4% Hispanic	Mean = 45	83.9% Male 16.1% Female
Rhodes & Clinkinbeard (2020)	1	20	SROs	Nebraska Iowa Kansas Missouri (City, Suburb, Town, Rural)	85% White 15% Other	25% 30–39 55% 40–49 15% 50–59 5% 60–69	85% Male 15% Female
Schuetz (2019)	1	14	Teachers	Rock County, Wisconsin	92.86% White 7.14% Asian	None Reported	57.14% Male 42.86% Female
Shuler (2011)	1	32 SROs 16 Principals	SROs Principal/Admin.	Four regions of South Carolina	None Reported	3.17% 20–29 28.57% 30–39 41.27% 40–49 22.22% 50–59 4.76% 60–69	88.89% Male 11.1% Female
Streater (2008)	1	34 Principals	Principal/Admin.	North Carolina (Urban & Rural)	None Reported	None Reported	71% Male 29% Female
Theriot (2016)	1	1,956	Students	Southeastern United States	64.7% White 26.2% Black 6.4% Other 2.4% Hispanic	Middle & High Schoolers	48.2% Male 51.8% Female
Theriot & Orme (2016)	1	1,956	Students	Southeastern United States	64.7% White 26.2% Black 6.4% Other 2.4% Hispanic	Middle & High Schoolers	48% Male 52% Female
VonDenBosch (2020)	1	12 Admins.	Principal/Admin.	Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States	None Reported	35–59	58.33% Male 41.67% Female
Wolfe (2014)	1	10	SROs	Southeastern Georgia	20% White 80% Black	45–62	70% Male 30% Female
Wolfe et al. (2017)	1	487 Principals	Principal/Admin.	South Carolina	None Reported	46–50	None Reported

Note: *Did not report N for respective groups; AI = American Indian; AN = Alaskan Native; PI = Pacific Islander; Methodological Rigor (Ratcliffe, 2017): 0 = Expert opinion, anecdotes, case studies, commercial or internal non-peer reviewed research and reports; 1 = One-off measure with no comparison site/group; 2 = Cross-sectional comparison of treatment and control, or before/after of treatment alone; 3 = Before/after with one site and a comparison site/group; 4 = Before/after across multiple sites or groups, or quality longitudinal analysis; 5 = Randomized controlled experiments; 5* = Systematic review/meta-analysis of quality studies

Results

School Resource Officers

A number of studies that sampled SROs asked them their perceptions of the different roles associated with SROs (e.g., law enforcement officer, counselor, educator; Barnes, 2016; Bauer, 2017; Carpenter, 2013; Gravitt, 2017; Rhodes, 2015; Shuler, 2011; Wolfe, 2014). When it came to which role they perceived as the most central to their job, SROs across each of the studies indicated they felt that law enforcement was their primary duty (Carpenter, 2013; Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011; Wolfe, 2014). This was likely due to the perception among many SROs that their main purpose was ensuring the safety of the students. This included tasks such as patrolling the interior and exterior of the school and intervening or arresting students who engaged in criminal behavior (Carpenter, 2013). Officers also felt that their presence helped increase the number of crimes solved at school (Barnes, 2016). Despite their emphasis on law enforcement, SROs still reported less time spent engaging in law enforcement activities compared to patrol officers, perhaps unsurprisingly given the relatively low crime rates in schools (Rhodes & Clinkinbeard, 2020).

This leads to the next most important perceived role SROs reported: the role of a counselor (Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011). SROs in several studies indicated that they spent a lot of their time trying to connect with students to build positive relationships. They perceived that if they were able to connect with students in a positive way that these students might then have more positive perceptions of law enforcement as a whole (Barnes, 2016). There was little discussion, however, of the systematic ways in which SROs could achieve this goal of building positive relationships. There is evidence from one study that SROs, in general, are supportive of more restorative practices when it comes to school discipline, because such practices allow SROs to act more as a counselor and be actively engaged in building a sense of school community, rather than be seen as a purely punitive source of control (Davis, 2016).

SROs reported law related teaching as their least important and least frequent role (Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011). Some officers perceived law related education as being ineffective at stopping crime, which may help explain why they felt it was less important than the other two roles (Shuler, 2011). Other studies suggested officers felt that the role of the SRO in education, such as using an officer to educate students about topics of particular relevance to police (e.g., drugs, legal issues), could be important for students but was not being used to its full potential (Bauer, 2017).

A common theme among officers in each study was how they perceived the importance of cooperation with other members of the school staff or administration (Barnes, 2016; Bennett, 2016; Gravitt, 2017). One of the central issues in the relationship between SROs, teachers, and school administrators has to do with how each stakeholder perceives the role of the SRO. In one study, SROs reported that they felt school administrators did not have a clear understanding of how to utilize them in schools, and that they had experienced some sort of conflict with school administrators about who is in charge of the SRO (in regard to the school versus the law enforcement agency; Barnes, 2016). In fact, clashes with administration about what were included in the SRO’s job responsibilities were noted across studies (Carpenter, 2013; Wolfe, 2014). The biggest point of contention for SROs often had to do with enforcing school regulations. Officers felt that it was their job to ensure the safety of students by investigating and preventing criminal acts, not to enforce school rules. Officers also felt that teachers were less willing to discipline students for rule infractions and that they were increasingly being asked to take the teachers’ place as the individual who disciplines students (Barnes, 2016). There is some evidence that SROs who are employed by a law enforcement agency and those who are employed by the school district have different perceptions of their job responsibilities. Those who are employed by the school district may be more likely to enforce school regulations than those who are employed by an outside police agency (Bauer, 2017).

Finally, SROs frequently reported the importance of having a good relationship with the school principal, in particular (Bennett, 2016; Rante, 2018; Wolfe, 2014). This relationship is especially important when it comes to the SROs role in developing or maintaining a school safety plan or reactive response plan (RRP). These are plans that the school and SRO make in the event of a school emergency (e.g., an active shooter) and require the coordination of a number of different stakeholders including students, teachers, SROs, and administration. Administration was cited as especially important given their ability to make budgetary decisions regarding the resources an SRO has for developing and training for a RRP (Bennett, 2016). Principals, therefore, were viewed as critical partners in shaping the job satisfaction of SROs.

Students

SROs and school safety

There were ten studies that evaluated students’ perceptions and attitudes concerning SROs. The findings discuss students’ first impressions of SROs, school safety, contact and communication with SROs, treatment of students’ misbehavior, and their perceptions of police officers as a whole. Some studies also examined if there were differences in students’ perceptions and attitudes based on their race, gender, and age.

School safety was the topic most frequently addressed across the articles (Bracy, 2011; Cooper, 2020; Donnell, 2016; Horner, 2013; Johnson, 2010; Pentek & Eisenberg, 2018; Theriot, 2016; Theriot & Orme, 2016). Several of these studies revealed that students believed the SROs increased school safety (Horner, 2013; Johnson, 2010; Pentek & Eisenberg, 2018). The majority of students in 2 different studies of SRO perceptions reported that they felt increased feelings of safety due to the presence of an SRO and that SROs prevented student misbehavior. (Horner, 2013; Johnson, 2010). In a large-scale study of middle and high school students, students who had an SRO in their school were significantly more likely to report feeling safe than students who did not have an SRO (Pentek & Eisenberg, 2018). In addition, the frequency of student interactions with an SRO were significantly related to their perceptions of school safety and of their SRO (Cooper, 2020; Theriot, 2016). Students who most frequently saw their SRO outside of the main offices and those who saw the SRO more times during the day scored significantly higher on their perceptions of SRO quality and school safety (Cooper, 2020). Students who attended a class led by an SRO had higher levels of school connectedness, expressed better feelings about police officers in general, and had a greater sense of safety as well (Theriot, 2016).

Not all students associate the presence of an SRO with school safety, however, with students’ perceptions potentially shaped by gender, race, and age. One study found no significant correlation between the students’ number of interactions with an SRO and their feelings of safety (Theriot & Orme, 2016) and another found that students believed their SRO had no impact on school safety (Bracy, 2011). A few of the studies examined gender and racial differences in perceptions of SRO presence, each with varying results. In Donnell’s (2016) study of high schoolers, male students expressed more disagreement that the SRO program improved school safety, reduced assaults against teachers and staff, and the need for SROs to ensure school safety when compared to female students. The female students were more likely to express that school safety could not be achieved without the SROs than the male students. This study also found significant differences in such attitudes across students of different races. African American, American Indian, and Asian American students were more likely to disagree that SROs create a fearful environment when compared to Caucasian, Hispanic, and Other students (Donnell, 2016). Conversely, Cooper (2020) found that male students reported both greater scores on perceived SRO quality and school safety. High school students in Bracy’s (2011) study stated that they were treated the same regardless of race or ethnicity. In one study, there were significant differences between the lower classmen (9th & 10th grades) and the upperclassmen (11th^h & 12th grades), with 9th and 10th graders expressing more disagreement with statements concerning whether SROs improve school safety. Specifically, lower classmen were less likely to agree that SROs reduce the number of gang fights and assaults against students, teachers, and staff than upperclassmen (Donnell, 2016). Feeling unsafe was associated with experiencing significantly more school violence, less positive attitudes toward SROs, and lower levels of school connectedness when compared to the safe group. On the other hand, being in the safe group was associated with more positive attitudes toward SROs and greater feelings of school connectedness (Theriot & Orme, 2016). Interestingly, students who perceived their SRO as only a law enforcement officer and not as an advisor or teacher, as suggested by the TRIAD model, reported lower perceptions of SRO quality and school safety (Cooper, 2020).

Attitudes toward SROs

Across four of the studies, students held generally positive attitudes toward their SRO (Bracy, 2011; Horner, 2013; Johnson, 2010; Kim, 2014). Students reported that they felt that they grew as a person because of their relationship with the officer, and expressed positive sentiment related to the SRO as a person, their role as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) instructor, and police officer (Horner, 2013; Johnson, 2010). Students found SROs to be a useful legal resource for questions about law enforcement, as well as positively influencing their perceptions of the consequences of truancy (Bracy, 2011; Johnson, 2010). That said, some students expressed concern with the ways in which SROs enforced the rules at their school; expressing feelings that SROs utilized the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach, were primarily used to punish students, and gave special treatment to athletes (Bracy, 2011; Horner, 2013). In addition, the underclassmen in one study reported that SROs’ presence increased the odds that students would be arrested for non-violent behavior, leading to negative sentiment regarding the SRO (Donnell, 2016). Student victimization was also related to their perceptions of the SRO. Students who experienced more types of school violence had more negative attitudes toward the SRO. Conversely, students who had experienced less disciplinary actions had more positive perceptions of their SRO (Pentek & Eisenberg, 2018).

Two studies surveyed college students concerning experiences they had with SROs during high school (Kim, 2014; Maybury, 2017). Specifically, these studies utilized a convenience samaple of college students to survey them on their experiences with SROs during their senior year of high school (Kim, 2014; Maybury, 2017).In one study of college students, when asked how the students perceive the SRO’s expected helpfulness, most students felt they could receive some help from them (72%; Kim, 2014). Students did not spend a lot of time communicating with the SRO, however, with about 90% of students reporting a few minutes or less on average per interaction. There was a positive relationship between students’ first impression of an SRO and their feelings of comfort in seeking advice and reporting crimes. There was also a positive and statistically significant relationship between students’ first impressions and their overall perceptions of SROs (Kim, 2014). Another study conducted using college students (N = 484) found more mixed results (Maybury, 2017). Analyses found that having an SRO during one’s senior year of high school had little impact on their perceptions of police while in high school. Conversely, having an SRO during one’s senior year of high school significantly predicted current perceptions of police. If the student had positive perceptions of the police while in high school, they were likely to have positive perceptions of police in adulthood (Maybury, 2017).

Teachers

Of the studies in our sample that examined perceptions of SROs from a teacher’s perspective, three of them focused on the qualities that teachers thought made an effective SRO (Barrans, 2010; Bauer, 2017; Joyner, 2015). In particular, teachers in two studies indicated the importance of an SRO being consistently present and available in school (Barrans, 2010; Joyner, 2015). In one study in which participants were asked how often they saw their SRO, around half of the teachers in each study sample indicated they saw their SRO more than once a week (Barrans, 2010). This perceived presence can differ based on whether or not the SRO is assigned to work in one or more schools. For example, Barrans (2010) found that over half the teachers at a school that did not have a specific SRO assigned to it reported seeing an SRO once a month or less. Consequently, when participants reported seeing an SRO in their school, it was because a student had committed a criminal act that required police intervention (Barrans, 2010). This lack of consistent presence can have consequences regarding how SROs are perceived by teachers in schools. Evidence from our sample of studies indicates that schools with an SRO assigned to them and who have regular interactions with them are much more likely to rate the SRO as a “friendly presence” in the school (Barrans, 2010, p. 39). Teachers also felt that a regular SRO presence was important for building positive student-police relationships (Barrans, 2010). Conversely, lack of presence can also have detrimental effects on teacher satisfaction with SROs. In one study, 11 out of 13 teachers interviewed at two different high schools said they were unsatisfied with their SRO due to a perceived lack of presence in the hallways or classrooms of the school (Joyner, 2015).

The regularity of an SRO’s presence in school is also tied to their perceived roles as law enforcement, counselor, and educator. Older and female teachers were more likely to agree with the roles of an SRO as defined by the NASRO (Bauer, 2017). Teachers who were unfamiliar with the role of SROs in their school reported that they were unlikely to interact with the SRO for fear of being perceived as bothersome. In addition, these teachers who were unfamiliar with the SRO stated that they felt the SRO’s job was to simply act as a deterrent for crime (Joyner, 2015). Likewise, for schools where police officers were not consistently present, police were more likely to be viewed as serving a punitive role (i.e., they were present to make arrests; Bauer, 2017). These perceptions could help explain the evidence from our studies indicating that the most commonly perceived role of SROs by teachers is that of a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a counselor or educator; Bauer, 2017; Joyner, 2015).

Teachers emphasized the importance of a consistent presence of an SRO on school grounds as a deterrent to students who might otherwise have acted out, but that SROs fell short in other areas, including teaching (Barrans, 2010; Joyner, 2015). Teachers felt that SROs could do more when it came to their role as an educator, and that education was the least common role for an SRO (Joyner, 2015). This possibly points to a lack of SRO involvement inside of classrooms. Other studies of teacher perceptions regarding the roles of SROs in schools have also found significant disparities among teachers’ perceived knowledge regarding SRO responsibilities. Teachers in one study reported that a lack of introduction to or education regarding the role of the SRO by their school’s administration greatly contributed to their lack of knowledge about SROs (Joyner, 2015). Despite issues regarding the presence and understanding of SROs, in every study a majority of teachers still rated SROs as having a positive effect on school safety (Barrans, 2010; Bauer, 2017; Davis, 2016; Dit Lapointe, 2016; Johnson, 2010; Joyner, 2015; Schuetz, 2019). There was disagreement regarding teacher’s perceptions that SROs increased students’ learning however, with one study indicating positive teacher perceptions of SROs on student achievement (Barrans, 2010) and one indicating no perceived effect (Johnson, 2010).

Principals and School Administrators

The six studies of principals and school administrators in our sample focused on many of the same dimensions of important SRO traits and roles that were included in the studies of teacher perceptions. Overall, studies overwhelmingly found that principals have positive perceptions of SROs impact on improving the safety of schools (Chrusciel et al., 2015; Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011; VonDenBosch, 2020; Wolfe et al., 2017). In two studies, principals believed that SROs were effective in performing the various roles of an SRO as defined by NASRO (Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011). Studies of principals regarding the role of SROs found that principals largely viewed the main role of the SRO as making the school safer or deterring crime (Gravitt, 2017; VonDenBosch, 2020). The most frequent secondary role of an SRO was that of counselor, followed by educator (Gravitt, 2017; Shuler, 2011; VonDenBosch, 2020). In one study, Shuler (2011) found that 73% of the principals who responded perceived law enforcement to be the main role of an SRO in school, followed by counseling (15%) and teaching (10%). In Gravitt (2017), the number of principals who perceived law enforcement as the main role of an SRO was similar, with 64% responding this way, followed by 25% reporting counseling and 10% reporting education as the main role. Principals in one study even considered teaching by SROs to be an ineffective means of using the officer’s time (Shuler, 2011).

When it came to the important everyday tasks of an SRO, principals reported fostering positive relationships with students and staff as vital to the job (Gravitt, 2017; VonDenBosch, 2020; Wolfe et al., 2017). Like teachers in other studies, principals also acknowledged the importance of having an SRO who was both visible and available to the students. These relationships with students were seen as vital to improving students’ overall perceptions of law enforcement (VonDenBosch, 2020). Unique to principals, however, was that they also emphasized the importance of the SRO to be a trusted member of the overall school staff and noted that it is part of an SRO’s job to communicate with teachers, staff, and administration in an effective way (Gravitt, 2017; VonDenBosch, 2020). Importantly, principals who had SROs who treated students and staff fairly were significantly more likely to perceive the SRO positively and were also more likely to believe that the SRO was having a positive overall effect on school safety. Principals also perceived these SROs were more likely to be viewed as trustworthy by students and teachers. Procedurally fair SROs were also more likely to be perceived as legitimate (Wolfe et al., 2017), which is an important element in producing compliance with law enforcement on the part of teachers, students and staff. Principals also felt that SROs had an important leadership role in the school and this leadership was intrinsically tied to their role in making sure the school was safe (VonDenBosch, 2020).

Parents and Members of the General Public

There were only two studies that targeted parents in their sample (Cook, 2019; Johnson, 2010) and both studies were quite limited in scope. Cook (2019) conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 parents whose children attended public, private, or charter schools in the Washington, DC area (i.e., Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia) about their perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs. Johnson (2010) surveyed 150 parents of middle school students in a single urban location on their perceptions of the School Resource Officer Program (SROP). This limits our ability to draw any conclusions regarding the perceptions of this important stakeholder group.

Finally, one study of the general public surveyed 1,983 heads of households residing in Anchorage, Alaska (Myrstol, 2011). This study found that residents of Anchorage had confidence in and public support for SRO programs. In general, respondents felt confident SRO programs could reduce delinquency in and around schools. They were also optimistic about the potential for positive spill-over effects from the SRO programs in that they could reconfigure and improve the relationship between the public and police. Respondents also felt that the programs could provide many educational benefits to students as well as benefit the police officers by broadening their perspectives. There was relatively little concern that SRO programs would have negative consequences (Myrstol, 2011).

Discussion

While idiosyncratic uses of SROs have been around since the 1950s, the widespread use of these positions has occurred over the last thirty years, making them a staple of the modern educational environment in many locations (James & McCallion, 2013). Therefore, it is important to evaluate how their presence affects the school environment across important stakeholders, including students, teachers, principals and school administrators, parents, the general public, and even SROs themselves. SROs can have multiple duties across school environments, including their traditional role as a law enforcement officer, counselor and mentor to students, and even instructor (Canady, 2018). Understanding how stakeholders view the role and effectiveness of SROs, including their impact on school safety is particularly important as feelings of safety among students and staff has been described as a critical element in creating a healthy learning environment (Wang et al., 2020). That is, if stakeholders view SROs as effective in creating a safe and secure school environment, then removing them from schools may have the unintended effect of making stakeholders feel as though schools are less safe. On the other hand, if stakeholders do not believe SROs are effective at creating a safe school environment then removing them from schools may not impact the perceived safety of the school, and may actually improve feelings of safety should stakeholders view police presence on school campuses as detrimental to school safety.

This systematic review focused on the perceptions and attitudes of key stakeholders in the debate surrounding SROs, including: SROs, students, teachers, administrators, parents and the general public. This review examined what the stakeholders believed to be the primary tasks performed by SROs, how SROs influenced school safety, and their feelings about SROs in general. Overall, the findings across the thirty-one publications suggested that key stakeholder groups largely reported that SROs are a positive presence within schools. While some studies provided mixed reports on the perceived effectiveness of SROs, including whether SROs actually reduce delinquent or dangerous behaviors on school grounds, by and large stakeholders agreed that SROs improve school safety. Still, there is evidence not all students perceive the presence of an SRO in the same way. There is conflicting evidence regarding the effects of an SRO on black student perceptions of school safety, with some evidence that black students might be more fearful with an SRO on campus (Theriot & Orme, 2016), some evidence that black students are less fearful of SROs (Donnell, 2016) and still other studies find no differences by race (Bracy, 2011). Herein lies perhaps the greatest dilemma facing SROs: a majority of students, teachers, principals, and parents feel that SROs are effective in maintaining school safety, but there is still the potential for a small but significant minority who feel less safe at school with an SRO. With this in mind, there are ways in which an SRO might improve their image among stakeholders.

Across many studies, stakeholders mentioned various ways in which the SRO might improve their role in promoting school safety. One of the most commonly mentioned traits necessary for an SRO was the need to be visible and available to students and staff. Teachers, students, and principals all mentioned that having an SRO who was physically present in the school and available was important in ensuring that the school was safe. Teachers and principals felt that officer presence was important in developing positive relationships between students and SROs. Evidence from the studies of students supported that notion. Students who had frequent interactions with SROs had higher overall perceptions of their SROs as well as higher feelings of safety at school (Cooper, 2020; Theriot, 2016). In order to facilitate a consistent presence of an SRO in school, it may be necessary for officers to be assigned to a specific school (or small number of schools) where they can maintain a more consistent relationship with the student and faculty bodies. When officers are not able to develop such a relationship with a (or a small number of) school(s) is that police tend to only show up when a criminal act occurs and therefore are associated with a solely punitive role in the minds of students and staff (Barrans, 2010).

A number of studies in this systematic review tested stakeholder perceptions of the TRIAD model and how consistent the behavior of their SROs are with the model. Teachers, principals, and SROs all consistently rated the role of law enforcement officer as the most important and most common role of an SRO and the role of an educator as the least common (often by a significant margin; Bauer, 2017; Carpenter, 2013; Gravitt, 2017; Joyner, 2015; Shuler, 2011; Wolfe, 2014). This is perhaps one of the biggest missed opportunities for SROs, given that teachers, principals, and SROs all recognized that officers are not being utilized to their full potential in the classroom, and teaching could be a positive way for students and officers to interact (Gravitt, 2017; Joyner, 2015; Shuler, 2011; VonDenBosch, 2020). The lack of investment in officers instructing students is even more unfortunate given the evidence that students who attend a class led by an SRO have higher levels of school connectedness, express better feelings about police officers in general, and have a greater sense of safety (Theriot, 2016). Bringing officers into the classroom as teachers could also have the benefit of reducing the perception of SROs are purely punitive, which some students indicated as major concerns (Horner, 2013). Such evidence is also backed by large-scale evaluations of officer taught school-based delinquency prevention programs that found both short and long-term positive impacts on attitudes toward the police among students taught by police in the classroom (Esbensen et al., 2013, Schuck, 2013).

However, there are several obstacles to bringing SROs into a greater teaching role. As mentioned earlier, SROs still view themselves primarily in the role of a law enforcement officer and this perception is shared by several other stakeholders including principals and teachers. In addition, SROs reported that they felt school administrators did not know how to utilize them as an educator (Barnes, 2016; Bauer, 2017). Establishing a teaching role for an SRO requires first overcoming the widespread perception of SROs as focused primarily on law enforcement but would also necessitate greater training in how to be an effective instructor.

A key finding in our systematic review of the literature is the lack of research on public perceptions of the role and effectiveness of SROs. Research on both parents and the general public’s views on what have become common components of the educational environment is an important area for exploration, however, given the importance of public opinion in policy and practice. While research would suggest that as long as public support for SROs as a school safety measure is high, schools are likely to continue using officers in this capacity (Pickett, 2019), despite the costs (Burton et al., 2021), we actually know very little about the general level of support on this topic. Future research should focus on this area of public opinion in order to better understand how committed communities are to SROs in schools.

Examination of the methodological rigor associated with the body of work on stakeholder perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs suggests much of what is documented in this area comes from small scale, localized studies of persons associated with schools that contain SROs. Thus, few of these studies, on their own, provide generalizable evidence on stakeholder perceptions of the role and effectiveness of SROs. There are no randomized controlled trials to ascertain whether implementation of SRO programs within schools changes stakeholder perceptions, and little longitudinal evidence to determine whether stakeholder perceptions have changed over time. More rigorous research in this area is certainly warranted. That said, unlike more objective measures of SRO performance, which necessitates more rigorous research designs to tease out causal effects of SROs, the purpose of this systematic review was on understanding stakeholder perceptions of the roles and effectiveness of SROs in improving school safety. While individually these studies often lack methodological rigor, together they help us to understand the tenor of stakeholder opinions of SROs, and thus cross-sectional and single site research can help to shape future studies that can more rigorously assess how the school community responds to the presence of SROs.

In the end, SROs have become part of the school safety community, and as such we need to develop an evidence-based understanding of the best ways in which to incorporate these personnel in a way that does not harm students. This necessitates high quality research and evaluation into the most common and emerging areas where SROs and law enforcement more generally are tasked with helping to create safe schools, including their role in comprehensive school safety planning (U.S. Department of Education, 2014), school threat assessment (Cornell, 2020), and restorative practices (Eisman et al., 2020). Such research and evaluation will help to better understand the mechanisms associated with individual and school level outcomes associated with the presence of an SRO and help to ensure SROs are utilized in ways that improves the lives of all school stakeholders, leading to a high-quality education for students.

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, (grant number 2019-YS-BX-K001).

ORCID iD

Makayla Mason

Author Biographies

Matthew Almanza is a PhD candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His primary research interests include youth violence, weapon carrying, weapon violence, and victimization. His work has been published in the Journal of Crime and Justice and Victims and Offenders.

Makayla Mason is a PhD student in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her primary research interests are victimology, sexual violence, and cybercrime. Her work has been published in Journal of Criminal Justice, Crime & Delinquency, and the Journal of Family Violence.

Chris Melde is director and professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is an affiliated faculty member with the Youth Equity Project, Global Urban Studies, and the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University, and a research associate at the Michigan Justice Statistics Center. His primary research interests include street gangs, youth violence, crime prevention, public perceptions of crime and victimization risk, and program evaluation.

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