EDUCATION UNDER ARREST: - Justice Policy Institute

2 JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTEPART IIWHAT IS A SCHOOL RESOURCEOFFICER?School resource officers (SRO) are charged with a number of duties at mostschools including education and mentoring, but first and foremost, their primaryfunction is to provide security and law enforcement while stationed in schools.According to the National Center on EducationStatistics, a school resource officer is a “careerlaw enforcement officer, with sworn authority,deployed in community-oriented policing, andassigned by the employing police department oragency to work in collaboration with school andcommunity-based organizations.” 6 Althoughmany jurisdictions rely on law enforcement,some jurisdictions, like Oklahoma County, hirecorrectional officers to SRO positions. 7SROs are typically accountable first to the policedepartment and then to the school, which mightpay part of an SRO’s salary or administrativecosts. Nonetheless, a handbook for recruitingand retaining SROs, says that an SRO canoverrule a school administrator who wants toprevent the arrest of a student. 8An SRO carries out some of the functions of aguidance counselor or social worker, such asmentoring or advising, but with arrestingauthority and license to carry a weapon inschools. In a national assessment of SROprograms, SROs reported that they spendapproximately 20 hours per week on lawenforcement activities, 10 hours on advising andmentoring, 5 hours on teaching (e.g. G.R.E.A.T.or D.A.R.E. programming 9 ), and another 6 or 7hours on other activities. 10The National Association of School ResourceOfficers (NASRO) offers training to help SROsgain the skills to work effectively in schools andwith students. For example, the Basic SROcourse includes training on being a positive rolemodel, counseling, adolescent emotional issues,and instructional techniques. The course isdesigned to help an SRO balance his or her triadrole of law enforcement officer, counselor andeducator. However, since SROs are usuallyrecruited from the ranks of law enforcement,they typically have years of law enforcement12%(5 hours)SROs spend the majority of theirwork week on law enforcementactivities.16%(6.5 hours)24%(10 hours)48%(20 hours)Law EnforcementAdvising andMentoringTeachingOtherSource: Peter Finn and Jack McDevitt, National Assessmentof School Resource Officer Programs Final Project Report(Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 2005).www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209273.pdf.