Over-Criminalized & Under-Resourced

The murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Elijah McClain have drawn national attention to policing issues throughout the U.S. One reform in the wake of these murders that is gaining attention is the Counseling Not Criminalization Act. This act proposes schools to replace school resource officers (SRO) with psychologists, social workers, and other staff to help support student mental health and provide trauma-informed services rather than institutionalized punishments. This policy, if enacted, will drastically change the educational outcomes for marginalized students throughout the country.

The Department of Education in 2016 determined that schools in the U.S. overwhelmingly have more police on hand than support staff to deal with student’s behavior issues. The ACLU cited that:

– 1.7 million students are in schools with cops but no counselors
– Three million students are in schools with cops but no nurses
– Six million students are in schools with no psychologist
– 10 million students are in schools with cops yet no social workers.

When schools have more SRO than support staff, the outcomes can dramatically change the trajectory of students’ lives, especially that of marginalized students and those with disabilities. Schools with more cops overwhelmingly have more school arrests and referrals to law enforcement for minor and significant behavioral infractions. Schools equipped with SRO arrested students at five times the rate of schools not equipped with SRO.

School arrests and referrals to law enforcement have lifetime consequences for students. Arrest or law enforcement referrals permanently affect students’ records hurting their chances of employment, college acceptance, and other opportunities. Nevertheless, many schools still use law enforcement due to federal funding of SRO over support staff. Unlike law enforcement, support staff help bridge the gap between academic learning and social/emotional strategies that support healthy learning environments. However, when schools use SRO over professionally trained staff who have little to no required training, the results are not surprising.

Scholar Emily Owens in 2017 conducted a national study and found the arrest of students increased substantially after schools received federal grants to hire SRO under the zero-tolerance act. She cites that each additional officer leads to 2.5 additional arrests annually of students between ages 7 and 14. Furthermore, Black students were nearly three times more likely to be arrested, and students with disabilities five times more likely for a similar infraction to their white counterparts.

Moreover, SROs make arrests for simple behavioral infractions that could be solved with traditional interventions. Minor offenses since the inclusion of SRO have resulted in severe punishments. Examples include expulsion or arrest for students breaking the “no weapons or drugs” policy by being in possession of nail clippers, rubber bands, cough drops, or mouthwash on school grounds. These infractions, regardless of school policy, do not warrant school arrest or expulsion. And though these are some of the most notable misuses of school force, these types of infractions become extreme when staff does not have the proper training like that of SRO. Officers in most states only have 672 hours of training — less than the required training to become a barber or plumber in most states — while teachers, psychologists, councilors, and social workers must have bachelor’s degrees and undergo additional training before working with students in nearly every state. Hence why the Counseling Not Criminalization Act was written in such a way to remove SRO from schools entirely. In this current system, students are being systematically over-criminalized and under-resourced by federal policies. It is time for federal legislation to correct over surveillance and criminalization of minors.