Few will disagree that SROs are in the position to influence consequential decisions on the children they interact with on a daily basis. Some of these decisions may result in juvenile arrests; others may influence the student to pursue a path of constructive citizen- ship. Given this substantial, and arguably life changing influence SROs potentially have on children they interact with, we sought to better understand how SROs make decisions and carry out their job duties. More specifically, we wanted to know if SROs see their role simply to maintain order and enforce laws in the schools or do SROs view themselves as bringing additional qualities to the job? We also wanted to know, when faced with various incidents on the job, do SROs seek a path of punishment that might carry long-term consequences for students, or do SROs operate in a manner that is productive for the long-term development of students?
The questions posed are critically important in today’s public debate, where the role of law enforcement within a school community is being questioned. As the discussion around the “school to prison pipeline” and incidents of misconduct by individual officers makes their way into the public spotlight, a growing number in society reflect on whether or not law enforcement should have an active role within the school community.
In this article, we provide preliminary evidence from a large-scale national survey that suggests SROs work as a positive member of the school community, and actively seek to divert students from the justice system. We maintain that the information we have gathered is a positive step in understanding SROs. We also believe additional research should be undertaken to more fully understand the environment SROs work in, so that the law enforcement community can build on the current, positive work being provided to communities. Furthermore fostering public confidence in including law enforcement in order to provide additional resources to school systems.
Survey and Strategy Overview
Our research team conducted a national survey of SROs, with over 1,700 respondents. Responses came from all 50 states, and represent a diverse group of age, years of service, regions, and training. Our strategy was to carefully analyze the components of the decision-making process from four perspectives. These perspectives, and the key question addressing each perspective, are summarized in Table 1.
We first focused on how the SRO views their role in the school system. Next, we presented survey respondents with an array of common incidents a SRO is likely to deal with on the job, and then asked how they would likely respond to the incident. See Table 3 for a list of incidents. Respondents were given a range of options -- from doing nothing all the way through issuing a juvenile petition or criminal complaint- - on how they would likely handle the situation. Understanding decisions officers face are not made in a vacuum, and often include a host of contextual factors to consider, the third perspective we explored were potential factors that might influence how the SRO handled the before mentioned incidents.
Finally, to understand if the SRO is a trusted partner in the school, we sought to understand the origin of the arrests. Stating this point differently, we wanted to know if the SRO is a “lone wolf” walking the hallways to enforce laws, or do students and school personnel engage the SRO as a collaborative member of the school community.
Identity
The first perspective is to understand how an SRO views their role within the school. According to the triad model, the SRO serves a variety of functions within the school. These roles consist of traditional policing functions of enforcing laws, providing mentoring/counseling to children, and serving as an educator.
The very first survey statement posed was: “Rank the following three prongs that you most closely relate to: most (1) to least (3). As noted in Table 2, 68.6% of respondents selected law enforcement as the prong they most closely identified with. This does not come as a surprise since SROs are sworn police officers. What is interesting to us, however, is that nearly one-third of respondents chose mentor/counselor as their primarily role. Further, a total of 63% of respondents indicated mentor/counselor as their second choice.
The takeaway point in our view is that, while the SRO might view themselves as law enforcement, they clearly view their role in the school system as something more than simply law enforcement. When an SRO views their role as something more than simply law enforcement, such as taking on a mentor/counselor role, this will in turn, influence how the officer responds to incidents in a positive way. In the paragraphs below, we offer additional information to support this claim.
Activities
Our survey also explored the frequency in which SROs engage in various job-related activities. Table 2 provides a list of the activities and the percentage of respondents that engage in the activities on a daily and weekly basis. Our data clearly shows on a day-to-day basis, SROs are engaging in activities that fall more in line with a member of the school community than the law enforcement role.
When glancing at the other activities, however, you will clearly notice the SRO is walking the halls to be visible and approachable to staff and students, sparking interest in law enforcing, and working with various school personnel more frequently than they are engaging in tasks associated with the law enforcement function. To be sure, SROs do carry out law enforcement functions. Respondents reveal that 16% investigate crimes and 5% cite, arrest, and/or attend court hearings on a daily basis. To put our findings into perspective, an SRO is more likely to refer a student for help to community service or meet with the school’s parent teacher association than they are to cite or arrest a student.
Response Options
It is often noted that law enforcement officers have considerable discretion in how to handle a situation. To this end, we presented our respondents with a range of negative behaviors they are likely to encounter as an SRO. We then provide the respondent with a range of outcome options and ask them to indicate their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd preferences for handling the situation. The outcome options range from not taking any action on the situation all the way through to the most serious consequence of issuing a juvenile petition or criminal complaint. Our theory behind this thought process experiment is SROs acting in accordance with another prong, such as mentor/counseling prong, are likely to steer students away from the justice system. Our data confirms our position.
Referring to Table 3, you will see a list of situations followed by the percentage of respondents that either reserved discipline for school administration or chose to mentor or counsel the student as their primary course of action. The data demonstrates that when encountering negative, and potentially criminal student behaviors, SROs seek to avoid the justice system as their preferred option.
It is also important to highlight that SROs are not shirking responsibility or simply leaving discipline to school personnel. Respondents noted they consider important factors such as the seriousness of the offense, circumstances around the offense, prior behavior and desire of a victim, to name a few, when choosing the severity of response. Further, even though the SRO is working alongside school personnel, 93% of SROs indicated that they feel comfortable disagreeing with school personnel on matters concerning students, and 90% feel as if their departments support their on-the-job decision-making.
In sum, our data does not support the notion that law enforcement presence automatically means an increased chance of a student getting referred to the justice system. SROs overwhelmingly prefer to take actions that do not have potential long- term impacts on a student. What is more, when deciding how to handle a situation, it appears that the SRO is working with school administration to determine the best course of action, but is also confident to insert their position.
Collaboration
The data presented Tables 2 and 3 suggests that SROs behave in a collaborative manner when carrying out their job functions. Our survey reveals an additional piece of information to illustrate the SRO as a trusted member of the school community. Responses indicate that roughly two-thirds of the incidents that rise to a juvenile petition or arrest come from school personnel (37%) and other sources such as students or social service agencies (27%).
Our research shows that the SRO adapts to a non-traditional role and shifts emphasis away from the role of a law enforcement officer to that of a mentor/counselor. We view this as a remarkable cultural transformation and invite questions and comments on this most important subject.
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