Policing Education: An Empirical Review of the Challenges and Impact of the Work of School Police Officers

Abstract

Highlights
Systematic review of literature on the roles, training, and impact of school police officers (SPOs).
SPOs occupy conflicting roles with high authority and little preparation.
Presence of SPOs is associated with no changes or increases in exclusionary discipline.
Presence of SPOs is associated with an overall null effect on safety and increases in student arrest.
Recommendations center on clarifying and limiting the roles of SPOs through formalized partnerships.

Full text

Policing Education: An Empirical Review of the Challenges and Impact
of the Work of School Police Officers
Shabnam Javdani
Highlights
•Systematic review of literature on the roles, training, and impact of school police officers (SPOs).
•SPOs occupy conflicting roles with high authority and little preparation.
•Presence of SPOs is associated with no changes or increases in exclusionary discipline.
•Presence of SPOs is associated with an overall null effect on safety and increases in student arrest.
•Recommendations center on clarifying and limiting the roles of SPOs through formalized partnerships.
©2019 Society for Community Research and Action
Abstract Public concerns regarding school safety and
zero-tolerance education policies have contributed to the
growth of a workforce of school police, or frontline school
safety professionals who are typically placed in schools
with the authority to arrest students (Brown, 2006). Thus,
school police represent a workforce positioned at the nexus
of multiple systems, including education and juvenile
justice, and whose work likely brings them into contact
with underserved youth and families. Despite national
representation of this growing workforce (e.g., National
Association of School Resource Officers), little is known
about the responsibilities, roles, training, and influence of
school police. This manuscript aims to (a) advance
understanding of the school police workforce, including in
relation to school police training, needs, roles, and
influence, through a systematic review of scholarship in the
social sciences, with a focus on peer-reviewed research in
education, psychology, social work, criminology, and
juvenile justice; and (b) generate empirically supported
recommendations integrating key conclusions that
pertain specifically to targeting the challenges faced by the
school police workforce and identifying the best strategies
to enhance safety-related goals while mitigating
disproportionate legal and educational consequences for
underserved youth and families.
Keywords School police officers School resource
officers Education Juvenile justice Youth Policy
Public concerns regarding school safety, zero-tolerance edu-
cation policies, and increases in Federal and state funding
have contributed to the growth of a workforce of School
Police Officers (SPOs), or frontline school safety profes-
sionals who are typically placed in one or more schools
with the authority to arrest students (Brown, 2006). In this
paper, the term SPO is used to refer to members of the
school police workforce, who are most typically employed
fulltime by municipal or state law enforcement and some-
times referred to as School Resource Officers (Travis &
Coon, 2005). While the first SPO program was imple-
mented in 1953 in one county and there were fewer than
100 SPOs in 1970, there are currently an estimated
20,000–30,000 officers patrolling elementary, middle, and
high schools in the U.S. (James & McCallion, 2013; Wei-
ler & Cray, 2011). The decade between 1997 and 2007
was characterized by a particularly sharp growth in both
the number of full time SPOs patrolling schools, and the
number of law enforcement agencies employing an SPO
weekly (James & McCallion, 2013). It is estimated that
U.S. schools spend $14 billion a year for school safety per-
sonnel and practice (Kupchik, 2016).
The growth of the SPO workforce has coincided with a
growth in criminalizing student behavior. In urban juris-
dictions, an estimated quarter of new charges filed against
youth were school-related and one out of every six
charges in school occurred in cases where no crime was
committed, but an SPO was present (James, Logan, &
✉Shabnam Javdani
shabnam.javdani@nyu.edu
Department of Applied Psychology, Steinhardt School of Culture,
Education, and Human Development, New York University, New
York, NY, USA
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17
DOI 10.1002/ajcp.12306
EMPIRICAL REVIEW

Davis, 2011; Na & Gottfredson, 2013). SPOs are also
more likely to occupy schools enrolling larger populations
of students of color (Morris, Epstein, & Yusuf, 2017) and
underserved youth (Hirschfield & Celinska, 2011). These
youth are disproportionately targeted by exclusionary dis-
cipline practices, with a particular rise in suspensions and
expulsions for Black and Latina girls (Crenshaw, 2014).
According to the U.S. Department of Education biennial
Civil Rights Data Collection survey (CRDC), in 2016,
Black students were 2.6 times more likely to receive sus-
pensions and represented the largest percentage of suspen-
sions for subjective offenses (Curran, 2016). Suspension
and expulsion are a key influence on subsequent arrest
among girls (Morris et al., 2017).
Thus, SPOs represent a workforce positioned at the
nexus of multiple systems, including education and juve-
nile justice, and whose work likely brings them into con-
tact with underserved youth and families. Despite national
representation of this growing workforce (e.g., National
Association of School Resource Officers), little is known
about the characteristics and influence of SPOs. Thus,
while the intended outcome of supporting a growing SPO
workforce is school safety, it is unclear whether this
workforce is individually and organizationally positioned
to achieve this goal; and whether the positive or unin-
tended negative consequences of SPO labor are associated
with identifiable characteristics of the workforce. To date,
these questions have not been examined systematically
despite a growing empirical base on the work of SPOs.
This paper aims to (a) advance understanding of the
SPO workforce, including in relation to SPO training,
needs, roles, and influence, through a systematic review
of scholarship in the social sciences, with a focus on peer-
reviewed research across disciplines. This represents the
first systematic review of the SPO workforce, with poten-
tial to cast recommendations with attention to the work-
force specifically. Furthermore, this paper aims to (b)
generate empirically supported recommendations pertain-
ing to SPO workforce development informed by aim 1 as
well as through a targeted review of SPO-based program
evaluations and documented SPO-related city and state-
based programming. This review will generate empirically
supported recommendations to address the challenges
faced by the SPO workforce and identify the best strate-
gies to enhance safety-related goals while mitigating dis-
proportionate legal and educational consequences for
underserved youth and families.
Given the increasing interest across scholars, interven-
tionists, and educators, research on SPOs has grown.
However, much of the current work is descriptive and
lacks critical synthesis to inform our understanding of the
SPO workforce. This paper builds on two prior reviews
(Hirschfield, 2018; Petrosino, Guckenburg, & Fronius,
2012) and one meta-analysis (Fisher & Hennessy, 2016)
by including studies that inform characteristics of the SPO
workforce. This represents a major contribution given that
no prior reviews include this focus on the SPO workforce.
In addition, this study includes information on the influ-
ence of SPO work on school discipline as well as crime,
arrest, and safety. Of the existing reviews, some focus
only on school discipline (Fisher & Hennessy) whereas
those that include a broader set of outcomes do not use
systematic literature search strategies and focus on crimes
committed off of school property (Hirschfield, 2018); and
those that do employ systematic review strategies include
a narrower focus on school-based interventions led by
police (Petrosino et al., 2012). This paper advances prior
work by (a) focusing on the characteristics of the SPO
workforce, (b) connecting information about their influ-
ence to these workforce characteristics, (c) incorporating a
broad definition of potential outcomes of SPO work in
order to incorporate the richest set of evidence, and (d)
advancing integrative recommendations that target the
workforce toward promoting school safety.
Review Methodology
Studies included in this review were selected through sys-
tematic searches in PsychINFO, Google Scholar, and the
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstract Data-
base. Studies initially screened were selected by searching
databases for any study in a peer reviewed source pub-
lished between January of 1999 and May of 2018 that
included a common variant of key terms describing SPO
(e.g., school resource officer, school police, school officer)
and key terms relevant to the workforce indicators identi-
fied (e.g., roles, training, influence). The decision flowchart
detailing the number of articles identified, screened, and
included is summarized in Fig. 1, according to Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Ana-
lyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, Alt-
man, & The PRISMA Group 2009).
All abstracts of identified articles were reviewed, and
all articles that provided empirical data on the roles, train-
ing, and influence of the SPO workforce were included,
yielding a total of 28 papers. Papers were excluded if they
were not peer reviewed, did not pertain to any workforce
indicators, or were published prior to zero-tolerance policy
shifts in 1999. Studies using quantitative, qualitative, or
multiple methods were included. For studies on the influ-
ence of SPOs, studies were excluded if they did not use
quasi-experimental methods that included a comparison
group. These exclusionary criteria were applied in all
cases with the exception of a series of studies on school
discipline from one meta analysis (Fisher & Hennessy,
2016), which used pretest posttest designs modeling shifts
2 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

in outcomes in relation to when SPO programs were
implemented. Table 1 summarizes key methodological
and design characteristics and findings from included
studies, and is organized in two parts: (a) individual and
organizational factors related to SPO roles and training,
and (b) Influence of SPO Work and Programs. Part A is
further organized according to whether studies inform
individual characteristics or organizational/ecological fac-
tors; and Part B is further organized based on the associa-
tion between SPO presence and student crimes, arrest, and
safety or school discipline outcomes.
Defining the SPO Workforce
Between 42% and 68% of US public schools employ an
SPO at least once per week (Hirschfeld & Katarzyna,
2011; National Center for Education Statistics, U.S.
Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education,
2018). SPOs are most typically employed by local or state
law enforcement agencies, but can also be employed by
schools, federal grants, or through shared cost agreements.
Funding for SPOs comes from city, county, or school dis-
trict dollars (Cray & Weiler, 2011). Because SPOs are
employed by different agencies and not required to register
with any centralized database, little is known about their
demographic characteristics, other than that are likely to be
male (87%), White (79%), and about 40 years old on
average if they resemble U.S. law enforcement demograph-
ics (Banks, Hendrix, Hickman, & Kyckelhahn, 2016).
School Police Officers represent a growing workforce
(Dinkes, Cataldi, Kena, & Baum, 2006) with increas-
ingly broad job descriptions that include responsibilities
such as supervising traffic, controlling disruptive stu-
dents, attending parent and faculty meetings, patrolling
campus, helping criminal justice officials gather intelli-
gence, and facilitating delinquency prevention programs
(e.g., D.A.R.E; National Association of School Resource
Officers). Given these broad responsibilities, SPOs are
typically in a busier role compared with other non-spe-
cialized law enforcement officers despite the fact that
they operate in a more constrained environment (Finn,
Townsend, Shively, & Rich, 2005; Thurau & Wald,
2009). Although SPO responsibilities can vary within the
same state by virtue of distinct organizational structures,
SPOs who are sworn police officers (representing over
90% of the workforce; Travis & Coon, 2005) have
authority to enforce the penal code, carry firearms, and
have jurisdiction off of school property. SPOs differ
from other law enforcement officers because they have
further authority to enforce school rules (e.g., possession
of cell phones; school dress code violations) that would
not be enforceable outside of the school setting, engage
in searches of students and their possessions, and enforce
arrest or removal from school property without parent
consent.
Records identified through
database searching
(n = 5,082)
Additional records identified
through other sources
(n = 30)
Records screened
(n = 1,132)
Records excluded
(n = 1,067)
Full-text articles
assessed for eligibility
(n = 65)
Full-text articles
excluded
(n =37)
Studies included in
systematic review
(n = 28)
Fig. 1 Flowchart documenting identification, screening, and inclusion of articles reviewed. Included articles were published between January
1999 and May 2018. Adapted from The PRISMA Group (Moher et al., 2009).
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 3

Table 1 Summary of key findings from literature included in systematic review
Workforce
indicator
Summary of key findings
Authors Method Sample Findings summary
(A) Individual and organizational factors related to School Police Officer (SPO) roles and training
Roles and
Training
Chrusciel et al.
(2015)
Cross-sectional survey School administrators
Law enforcement executives
and public school principals
Majority support a need for SPOs
Mixed perceptions about whether
SPOs enhance safety from school
violence
Devlin and
Gottfredson (2016)
Longitudinal survey
with comparison
group
School surveys
480 schools from the School
Survey on Crime and Safety
for 3 years
Schools with SPOs reported more
crime than those without SPOs
Schools with SPOs engaging in
roles relating to education and
mentorship reported more crimes
than schools with SPOs engaging
only in law enforcement roles
Jackson (2002) Cross-sectional
comparison survey
School surveys
900 youth participants from
four public high
schools in one
Students in schools with an SPO
did not report differences in their
perceptions of law enforcement or
of offending compared to students
in schools without SPO
Kelly and Swezey
(2015)
Cross-sectional survey SPOs
53 SPOs representing 179
middle and high schools
in two urban US jurisdictions
45% of SPOs report spending the
majority of time in the role of law
enforcement officer
51% of SPOs reported that
counseling was most time
consuming, and reported highest
job satisfaction (93%) and rated it
as most important; 66% of SPOs
report satisfaction with teaching
and report dong less than 10 hours
per week of it;
Relationships are moderated by
SPO gender, with women reporting
higher satisfaction,
Lambert and McGinty
(2002)
Cross-sectional survey School surveys
161 principals, 159 SPOs
and 57 police administrators
in one state
Principals, SPOs and law
enforcement administrators differed
in their perceptions of job
expectations for SPOs
Martinez-Prather
et al. (2016)
Cross-sectional interview
study
SPOs
6 months of interviews
with SPOs in one state
40% of SPOs have not received
specialized training in practice
in schools
50%+report wanting more training
to promote job efficacy. Training
is related to SPO disciplinary
response
McKenna and
White (2018)
Cross-sectional survey SPO Survey
564 SPOs from on US
state (81% male, 54%
white, Median age 44)
Over 75% had been in law
enforcement over 1- years, though
41% had been in school law
enforcement less than 5 years.
Majority reported engaging in law
enforcement roles most frequently;
Second most frequent role
endorsed was that of mentor
Robles-Pi~
na and
Denham (2012)
Cross-sectional mixed
methods survey
and interview
SPOs
184 SROS, 106 hired by
school districts and 78 from
municipal and county
law enforcement
All SPOs had limited training. SPOs
hired by school districts had more
knowledge and school policies and
were more likely to use conflict
resolution than law enforcement
hired SPOs
Law enforcement-hired SPOs had
less school policy knowledge and
reported higher likelihood of using
legal interventions
4 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

Table 1. Continued
Workforce
indicator
Summary of key findings
Authors Method Sample Findings summary
Schlosser (2014) Case study with
observation and
interview
SPO-student interaction Role conflicts emerge between
competing demands to enforce
law and engage in counseling
or teaching
Thurau and
Wald (2009)
Qualitative interview
study
SPOs and police chiefs
SPOs and chiefs in 16
school districts in one state
Police chiefs viewed SPO role as
helpful, but had limited knowledge
about SPO roles; SPOs defined
school-police partnerships as both
cooperative/collaborative and
confusing/conflicting
Majority of SPOs had no
knowledge of Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU)
Organizational
and Ecological
Factors
Barnes (2016) Qualitative interview
study
SPOs
12 SPOs from middle and
high schools, selected from
random sample of schools
in one state
SPOs perceived that school
administration and staff does
not have clear understanding of
the role of SPOs
•Roles devalued by school
•Roles misunderstood by school
•Conflicting and paradoxical
understanding (monitor halls
versus respond to all issues)
•SPOs value forming
relationships with students
”Nobody knows what to use
us for, where to put us, or how
to fit us into the school
system”(p. 199)
Cray and Weiler
(2011)
Stratified random sample
of 67 school districts
in one state
Multiple methods
School administrators
National Data from National
Center for Educational
Statistics
Coding of Memoranda
of Understanding (MOUs)
50% of schools did not have an
MOU with law enforcement
agency; existing MOUs lacked
detail
No training provided to school
administrators on role of SPOs
Teske (2011) Multi-method case
study of one
US County
Official education and court data
Juvenile Court Automatized
Tracking System, incident level
After systems change effort
including an MOU, court referrals
reduced by 67%, graduation rate
increased to 80%, felony referral
rate decreased by 31%, school
detentions decreased by 86% and
court referrals to youth of color
decreased by 43%, and 73%
reduction in serious weapons
on campus
Theriot (2016) Cross-sectional survey
of students
Student survey
1956 students from five
high schools and seven
middle schools in
one US region
Greater SPO interactions related to
more positive perceptions about
SPOs
Greater SPO interactions related
to less school connectedness and
exposure to more school violence
Theriot and
Orme (2016)
Cross-sectional survey
of students
Student survey
1956 students from five
high schools and seven
middle schools in
one US region
Interactions with SPO were unrelated
to feelings of safety; positive
attitudes about SPOs were related
to more perceived safety
Students with more school
connectedness reported more
perceived safety
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 5

Table 1. Continued
Workforce
indicator
Summary of key findings
Authors Method Sample Findings summary
Wolf (2014) Cross-sectional
population survey
SPOs
28 SPOs representing
workforce in one state
(67% response rate)
100% reported using discretion in
arrest; 77% arrest to calm student
and 68% arrest to show
consequences
Student attitude and behavior
history were most important factors
in making arrest; 71% report that
arrest decision in schools differed
from arrest decisions in community
Wolfe et al.
(2017)
Cross-sectional school
survey
School Principals
487 principals in one state
SPOs employed for longer are
viewed more favorably
SPOs viewed as acting fairly are
more supported, seen as effective,
and trusted by school principals
Zullig et al.
(2017)
Cross-sectional survey
of students
Student survey
1065 students in grades
9–12 from seven public
schools
Positive perceptions about SPO are
positively related to school climate
(B) Influence of SPO work and programs
Crimes, Arrest,
& Safety
Barnes (2008) Non-equivalent
comparison
with post-test only
Official school crime
Data for public schools
from one state
Schools with SPOs have no
difference in crime rates compared
to schools without SPOs
Bhabra et al.
(2004)
Non-equivalent
comparison with
pre- and post-test
School administrator and
student survey
11 UK schools and two
comparison schools
School administrators perceived
reductions in substance abuse;
Behavioral measures of substance
use suggested no differences
between schools with SPO and
those without, on student
substance use
Brady et al.
(2007)
Non-equivalent
comparison with
pre- and post-test
Archival student outcomes
10 intervention schools
compared to all others
in NYC
Small decline in crimes at both
intervention and comparison
schools
McKay et al.
(2006)
Non-equivalent
comparison with
pre- and post-test
School administrator, officer
and student survey and
focus groups
Two intervention and two
comparison schools
in Canada
Perceived outcomes from police,
administrators, teachers, and
students from intervention schools
suggest positive attitudes toward
intervention
Survey data suggest no impact
on student safety or positive
social behaviors
Na and Gottfredson
(2013)
Longitudinal
non-equivalent
comparison with pre
and post-test
School Survey on Crime
and Safety
National random sample
of 470 US public schools,
principal reports
Increase in SPO workforce related
to increases in reporting of crimes,
likelihood of harsher responses,
higher rates of weapon and drug
crimes, and non-serious violent
crimes, compared to rates in
schools without SPOs.
Swartz et al.
(2016)
Cross-sectional
propensity score
comparison design
School surveys
Nationally representative
sample of 1699 elementary,
middle, and high schools
Schools with SPOs are more likely
to detect serious violence
compared to propensity
score-matched schools, but no
more likely to have safer school
climates or reduced incidences
of actual violence
6 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

The sections that follow present a synthesis of the
empirical evidence generated by this systematic review
(for individual study findings, see Table 1). In juxtaposing
the evidence on SPO roles, training, and influence, we are
positioned to move beyond the relatively piecemeal and
descriptive nature of research in this area and move
toward a more holistic understanding of the experiences
and challenges faced by this workforce. This further
allows us to better-understand the challenges and conflicts
inherent in the way that the SPO role is structured and in
the way SPOs are expected to function, and therefore pro-
vide recommendations that can leverage the skills and
motivation of this workforce to promote learning in safe
school environments.
SPO Roles, Training, and Influence
The evidence reviewed in the section informing SPO
roles and training is limited to descriptive and
correlational studies, though multiple raters using a vari-
ety of methods inform this body of work. Thus, the
major strength of the research evidence on SPO roles
and training comes from synthesizing this evidence to
provide a holistic picture of the role and function of
SPOs from multiple perspectives, which are described
throughout this section. Importantly, where information
is available from official sources that dictate aspects of
SPO roles or training (e.g., National Association of
School Resource Officers), these are specifically named,
described, and juxtaposed with corroborating or conflict-
ing information from other reporters. The evidence
reviewed on the influence of SPO work, in contrast,
seeks to be explanatory but is limited by a paucity of
research that employs full experimental designs with
equivalent comparisons. Thus, the section on SPO influ-
ence includes quasi-experimental studies and details
their methodological strengths and limitations, organized
by school discipline versus school crime and safety as
outcomes.
Table 1. Continued
Workforce
indicator
Summary of key findings
Authors Method Sample Findings summary
Theriot (2009) Cross-sectional,
statistically controlled
non-equivalent
comparison design
Arrest data
28 schools in one large
US district, where 13 schools
had SPO for at least
3 years and 15 did not
Schools with SPOs had arrest rate
of 12 per 100 versus comparison
school with a mean arrest rate of
4, but student poverty explained
this relationship.
Disorderly conduct arrests
increased whereas simple assault
arrests decreased in SPO schools
Zhang (2018) Longitudinal
non-equivalent
comparison group
SPOs and Students
238 middle and high
schools in one state
SPO presence related to increase in
drug-related crimes and out of
school suspensions and reduced
serious crimes if SPO present
long-term.
School
Discipline
Brady et al.
(2007)
Non-equivalent
comparison
with post-test only
Official Report/Archival
Student Outcomes
10 intervention schools
compared to all other
NYC schools
Intervention schools had higher
levels of exclusionary discipline
and suspensions than
non-intervention schools
Small decline in crimes at both
intervention and comparison
schools
Fisher and
Hennessy (2016)
Meta-analysis of seven
effect sizes
Multi-method
Meta-analysis using
pre-post designs
Presence of SPOs in high schools
related to higher rates of
exclusionary discipline in
schools at post-test
Fisher and
Hennessy (2016)
Meta-analysis of three
effect sizes
Multi-method
Meta-analysis using
comparison group designs
Schools with SPOs present were
no more likely to report
disciplinary infarctions compared
to schools without SPOs present
For studies on the influence of SPOs, studies were excluded if they were already included in the calculation of effect size in one identified
meta-analysis included in our review (Fisher & Hennessy, 2016). Studies with findings pertaining to more than one indicator appear only once,
though all relevant findings are presented. If two different designs or analyses were used in the same paper, that study will appear in more
than one row.
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 7

Conflicting Roles
School Police Officer roles include three primary func-
tions: educator/teaching, informal counselor/mentor, and
law enforcer (Canady, James, & Nease, 2012). These
roles are defined, in writing, by the National Association
of School Resource Officers (NASRO) and corroborated
by SPO self-reports (Travis & Coon, 2005). However,
SPOs report spending different amounts of time in these
roles (Finn & McDevitt, 2005; Kelly & Swezey, 2015)
with the most time spent on law enforcement and the least
on teaching; and report different levels of satisfaction in
each role (Kelly & Swezey, 2015; McKenna & White,
2018) with the least satisfaction related to teaching
responsibilities. SPOs participate in the least amount of
training to support counselor and educator roles. These
roles are prioritized differently by state and national poli-
cies, with an emphasis on law enforcement by the state
and an emphasis on education federally (James & McCal-
lion, 2013; McKenna & White, 2018).
The roles occupied by SPOs are distinct, carry poten-
tially conflicting responsibilities, and require different skill
sets (Brown, 2006; Schlosser, 2014). The primary respon-
sibilities of the law enforcer role range from “deterring
on-campus violence and criminality”to “conducting
criminal investigations”to “making arrests as needed”
(Thomas, Towvim, Rosiak, & Anderson, 2013). The most
often-endorsed activities reported by SPOs are consistent
with this role, and involve patrolling campuses and arrest-
ing students (James & McCallion, 2013). Almost 90% of
law enforcement officers complete law enforcement train-
ing and this training is typically paid for or incentivized
(Banks et al., 2016; Reaves, 2010), positioning SPOs to
be the most adept in this role, compared to in the coun-
selor or educator roles. The research evidence bears this
out, suggesting that SPOs use law enforcement tools most
often, there is agreement among school administrators and
law enforcement agencies that SPOs should function in
this role, and students perceive SPOs as enforcers of the
law (Devlin & Gottfredson, 2016). However, there are
two important caveats: most SPOs do not receive special-
ized training about schools, juvenile law, or adolescent
development (Travis & Coon, 2005) and SPOs can use
legal tools (including arrest) to respond to violations of
school discipline even if these violations do not constitute
criminal acts (Hirschfield, 2018).
Furthermore, the law enforcement role contradicts the
responsibilities of the educator and mentor roles. The pri-
mary responsibilities of the educator role include teaching
school staff, teaching students from curricula (e.g.,
D.A.R.E.), advising on emergency preparedness, and teach-
ing parents and the community. This requires the skill sets
possessed by teachers, centering effective facilitation of
content and process, navigating relationships with parents
and other teachers, and community building. Often, it
remains unclear what the specific intentions of teaching
school staff or parents are, beyond a general mission of pro-
moting school safety. The informal counselor/mentor role
is even less defined, yet it is idealized and emphasized as
important despite evidence that SPOs do not receive train-
ing or support to become mentors (Martinez-Prather,
McKenna, & Bowman, 2016; Robles-Pi~
na & Denham,
2012). Furthermore, the boundaries of this role are exceed-
ingly broad (e.g., “guidance through challenging issues”;
“dealing with stress”) and influenced by the competing
goals of building trust among students and identifying at-
risk students early (Thomas et al., 2013). Myriad examples
of this conflict are cited in the reviewed literature (e.g., stu-
dents seeking help with a drug problem may get arrested;
Fisher & Hennessy, 2016), and center on the risk inherent
in damaging any potential trust built (or potentially built) in
an SPO-student relationship if and when the demands of
the law enforcer role eclipse those of the other roles (Mal-
lett, 2016).
The literature reviewed also informs the function of
these roles, and suggests that these conflicting roles work
to devalue the actual training of SPOs as well as the
expertise of teachers. Indeed, the expertise of SPOs lies in
law enforcement and they uniformly receive little to no
training in informal counseling or mentorship (Martinez-
Prather et al., 2016). Yet, across all studies examining this
pattern, SPOs report that they feel pressured to mentor
and educate (McKenna & White, 2018; Thurau & Wald,
2009), feel the most satisfied when they perceive them-
selves as mentors (Kelly & Swezey, 2015) and perceive
little support for, or knowledge of, this role by law
enforcement or education administrators (Barnes, 2016;
Travis & Coon, 2005).
Yet, it is possible that SPOs engaging in educator or
counselor roles function to uncover and report more stu-
dent crimes, as demonstrated in a 3-year longitudinal
study of 480 schools, which suggest that counselor-educa-
tor oriented SPOs report more crimes than SPOs engaging
only in law enforcement roles (Devlin & Gottfredson,
2016). This is not surprising given the lack of training
that SPOs receive in providing any education or mentor-
ship. Furthermore, the growing presence of SPOs—and
the need to justify this presence—have created a climate
in which teachers and staff increasingly call on SPOs for
minor disciplinary issues and classroom management in
general (Kim & Geronimo, 2009). Indeed, nationally rep-
resentative school surveys suggest that schools are typi-
cally safe, with 85% reporting no physical fights with
weapons (Travis & Coon, 2005).Youth crime, including
violent crime and crime on school property, has been
characterized by a trend toward decline since the 1980s—
8 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

and prior to—the proliferation of SPO programs (James &
McCallion, 2013). Given this broader context, a pattern
that necessitates justifying SPO roles in mostly safe
schools may devalue the training and skills of teachers in
classroom management and relationship building. This
context has been most richly described in qualitative stud-
ies—for instance, as one SPO stated, “we are doing what
the educators ought to be—controlling the students in the
classroom”(Barnes, 2016, p. 200). This pattern is particu-
larly problematic because classroom management needs
are far more typical than school violence (Travis & Coon,
2005) and, in this way, SPOs became enforcers of school
rules, not laws. There is some evidence for exactly this
pattern, with SPOs reporting that “calming students down”
is the most frequent reason for placing them in handcuffs
(Kupchik & Monahan, 2006; Wolf, 2014).
However, this process also taxes the system and may
function to exacerbate the stigma associated with being an
SPO. On one hand, teachers may value quick removal of
individual students from classrooms. On the other hand,
this process may ultimately contribute to further misunder-
standing of SPO roles and isolation from other stakehold-
ers. As SPO’s engage in more student removals and court
referrals, the caseloads of probation officers, judges, pros-
ecutors, and public defenders also increase. In one county,
probation officer caseloads increased to 150 youth per
officer when SPO court referrals increased (Teske, 2011).
In turn, this may promote an unfavorable reputation about
SPOs among other law enforcement and court stakehold-
ers as less skilled and amateur “kiddie cops”(Weiler &
Cray, 2011), exacerbate the stigma associated with being
an SPO, and dampen support from supervising officers
who have a stake in maintaining the reputation of SPO
programs. In turn, lower perceived support is associated
with lower job performance among SPOs (Finn et al.,
2005) and lower perceived individual power (Schlosser,
2014).
A system-serving logic also undergirds this overall pat-
tern, wherein the SPO workforce and the organizations
administering SPO programs are placed in a position to
have to justify and sustain a workforce that has been
growing since the 1990s (James & McCallion, 2013).
Many SPO positions started with limited term grant-funds
that required takeover from city, county, and school dis-
trict funders (Raymond, 2010). Some have argued that the
increased pressure for SPOs to manage more classroom
issues and provide more mentorship to students is in
response to a need to sustain the workforce itself (Hirsch-
field, 2018). This is further consistent with research sug-
gesting that law enforcement and school administration
misunderstand, but overwhelmingly support, the presence
of SPOs in schools, while teachers tend to report mixed
feelings about SPO presence (Chrusciel, Wolfe, Hansen,
Rojek, & Kaminski, 2015; Cray & Weiler, 2011). This
context helps explain the increasing discretion exercised
by members of this workforce combined with the absence
of institutional training to do so—discussed in the next
section.
High Authority, Little Preparation
School Police Officers represent a workforce seemingly
underprepared to achieve the goals of their work but who
also possess relatively high authority and discretion in
responding to student behavior. As a specialized work-
force, SPOs lack systematic training on the roles they are
assigned (Finn et al., 2005; Robles-Piña & Denham,
2012; Thurau, Buckley, Gann, & Wald, 2013). NASRO
recommends, but does not require or track, that SPOs
receive 40 hours of specialized training. Thus, the average
training of the SPO workforce is not known, but studies
suggest that less than half of SPOs receive any additional
training (Thurau & Wald, 2009), even when additional
training is offered by their schools. In one study, less than
40% of SPOs received training on special education in
general despite holding beliefs that special education stu-
dents are more disruptive and use health as an excuse for
disrupting the classroom (Martinez-Prather et al., 2016;
May, Rice, & Minor, 2012). In other studies, over 50% of
SPOs expressed wanting more training with a focus on
juvenile law and school policies (Martinez-Prather et al.,
2016) and in conjunction with school staff (McKenna &
White, 2018). Importantly, however, none of these studies
include representative samples of the SPO workforce,
potentially because there is no centralized recording of
which law enforcement officers work as SPOs. Despite
this, a review of state policy suggests that 31 states do
not require specialized youth-focused training for SPOs,
and of the states that do, none systematically document
the content or empirical basis of their trainings (Brown,
2006; Morris et al., 2017). Furthermore, there are no uni-
form selection procedures despite evidence from one cor-
relational study (Canady et al., 2012) and one intervention
study (May, Fessel, & Means, 2004) suggesting that only
highly selected and trained school police promote per-
ceived safety.
The degree of authority and discretion possible in the
role of an SPO is critical to understand and contextualize
information about their influence. On the one hand, SPOs
can exercise high levels of authority over students and
discretion over decisions of how to respond to student
behaviors. Of the few studies to report on the discretion
exercised by SPOs, one finds that 100% reported using
discretion when making arrest decisions (Wolf, 2014), and
another finds that SPOs reported they frequently exercise
high discretion in making decisions about how to question
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 9

students about crimes or disclose information to schools
about student sealed court records (Kupchik & Bracy,
2010). A report from the ACLU underscores that it is
important to consider that youth are required to attend
school by law and they have limited privacy when they
are in school. In most cases, SPOs only need reasonable
suspicion that a student is breaking school policy (not
law), to search students or their possessions (Kim &
Geronimo, 2009). Further the investigatory and prevention
aspects of SPOs jobs create a structural context in which
SPOs are informally rewarded by school administration to
learn information about students labeled as problematic,
leverage their relationships with students to identify other
students to investigate (Barnes, 2016; Hirschfield, 2018),
and punish minor violations of school rules. For instance,
by virtue of their roles and job descriptions, SPOs can
issue tickets or citations requiring students to appear in
court. These decisions are subjectively influenced, and the
very limited evidence that exists suggests that SPOs are
issuing such citations at higher rates than they were in the
mid-1990s (Edmiston, 2011). As one recent review in this
area underscores, it is possible that this pattern is, in part,
explained by the demands that SPOs face to “be useful”
and remove low-achieving students from the school con-
text (Hirschfield, 2018).
On the other hand, SPOs face competing demands in
their roles and exercise little power in the face of deci-
sions from either law enforcement or school administra-
tors (Schlosser, 2014). Namely, schools are largely
incentivized to remove poor performing students (Na &
Gottfredson, 2013), and school administrators can enforce
removal of particular students by SPOs (Petrosino et al.,
2012). This further serves to justify the presence of SPOs
on school campuses, which is a stated priority of law
enforcement organizations (NASRO). Furthermore, SPOs
have little say over the shift in responsibilities (e.g., for
minor behavioral problems or classroom management)
from schools to SPOs. This can create fear, negatively
influence school climate, and add to SPO (and student)
confusion about the boundaries of the SPO role (Na &
Gottfredson, 2013). This pattern is corroborated by SPO-
reported quantitative, qualitative, and observational stud-
ies, which suggest that SPOs view their relationships with
school administration as sometimes confusing or conflict-
ing (Lambert & McGinty, 2002; Thurau & Wald, 2009;
Schlosser, 2014). Similarly, as sworn police officers, the
majority of the SPO workforce has little say over obeying
orders from law enforcement agencies who typically initi-
ate preventative legal responses, including random school
drug searches (Thurau & Wald, 2009). These competing
structural demands, combined with conflicting roles and
little preparation to engage in the roles that SPOs find
most rewarding create a context of social control.
Social Control with Faulty Logic
The deterrence effect that SPO programs seek—to prevent
future crime due to fear of rapid response by the consis-
tent presence of officers on school campuses—neither
leverages the skill sets of SPOs nor acknowledges the
economic and social costs embedded in settings with high
surveillance (James & McCallion, 2013). The idea of
schools functioning as institutions of social control is not
new (Noguera, 2003), but the theories on which it is
based are widely criticized and flawed (Brady, Balmer, &
Phenix, 2007). If we assume, as deterrence theory does,
that SPOs function as walking warning signs to students,
then it is necessary to acknowledge that this deterrence
effect would dampen if SPOs are successful in being men-
tors and educators. In fact, there is no evidence for either
premise—national surveys of students suggest that the
presence of SPOs is unrelated to their perceptions of
school safety or their own propensity to violate rules or
engage in violence (Swartz, Osborne, Dawson-Edwards,
& Higgins, 2016; Theriot, 2016; Theriot & Orme, 2016).
Indeed, there is no evidence that SPO presence is related
to a deterrence effect on school violence, gun violence or
mass shootings (Brady et al., 2007; James & McCallion,
2013).
Although only half of students report interacting with
fulltime SPOs (Theriot & Orme, 2016), greater interaction
with SPOs is related to less school connectedness (The-
riot, 2016). In turn, reduced school connectedness and
greater perceived unfairness are related to higher levels of
delinquency (Gottfredson, Gottfredson, Payne, & Gott-
fredson, 2005; Theriot & Anfara, 2011). Though the
directionality of these relations are not known, it is clear
that—even at the correlational level—there is no support
for the assumption that SPO presence deters negative
behavior.
The Influence of the Work of SPOs
The overarching conclusion of the studies on the influence
of the work of SPOs is that SPOs do not have a positive
influence—and may have a negative one—if they perform
the jobs they are positioned and trained to perform. The
majority of studies in this review suggest that the presence
of SPOs is linked to a higher likelihood of exclusionary
school discipline practices (Kim & Geronimo, 2009) and
school criminalization, which refers to policies leading to
student entry into the legal system for behaviors that are
crimes, public order/status offenses (e.g., truancy), or vio-
lations of school policies (e.g., dress code; Hirschfeld &
Katarzyna, 2011). However, findings are somewhat
mixed and no experimental evidence exists, limiting cau-
sal inference.
10 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

School Discipline
The most robust examination of the influence of SPOs on
school discipline comes from a meta-analysis of seven
quasi-experimental studies, which suggests that the pres-
ence of SPOs in high schools is related to higher rates of
exclusionary discipline in schools over time (Fisher &
Hennessy, 2016). These seven studies all used a pre-post
design and were positioned to compare within-school rates
of suspension or expulsion before and after SPO programs
were implemented. Despite high heterogeneity among
samples, this study found a mean rate ratio effect size of
1.21 suggesting that the risk of exclusionary discipline is
moderately stronger in schools with SPOs present. How-
ever, these seven studies did not use a comparison group,
even a non-equivalent one, reducing the confidence with
which SPO presence can be associated with shifts in
exclusionary discipline. Two large-scale studies that used
a comparison design and were not included in the original
meta-analysis, however, corroborate these findings (Brady
et al., 2007; Zhang, 2018). Specifically, a study of 10
schools in one large city found that schools with SPO
programs had significantly higher rates of school disci-
pline compared to schools in the same city, but without
SPO programs (Brady et al., 2007). Another study of 238
middle and high schools provides particularly compelling
evidence because of its employment of a large sample of
schools with and without SPO programs (Zhang, 2018).
In this study, a broad array of exclusionary discipline
practices, including student incidents, removals, and sus-
pensions, was assessed over a 3-year period of time. Find-
ings suggest that schools with SPOs have higher levels of
exclusionary discipline compared to schools without
SPOs, regardless of how long SPO programs had been in
place. This effect is sustained even after accounting for
school size, socioeconomic status of enrolled students (av-
erage percent of students living in low SES households),
language (average percent of students with limited English
proficiency), and gender (average percent of male stu-
dents). Together with the meta-analysis described above
(Fisher & Hennessy, 2016), this study by Zhang (2018)
provides the most robust evidence that SPO presence is
likely related to exclusionary discipline when discipline is
measured broadly (e.g., including incident reports, arrests
for fighting at school).
These patterns are somewhat countered by three other
smaller studies, which together support a non-significant
effect of SPO presence on school discipline (Fisher &
Hennessy, 2016). These studies are strong in that they use
a comparison group, but this methodological strength is
mitigated by low meta-analytic power with a study size of
3, and reliance on archival data defining discipline
narrowly (i.e., school suspensions; Link, 2010; as cited in
Fisher & Hennessy, 2016). This limited scope is in con-
trast to the aforementioned longitudinal studies, which
together examined SPO influence on arrests for fighting,
incident reports, and general crime reported to law
enforcement.
Although this research does not allow us to draw
definitive or causal conclusions, the evidence suggests that
there is a strong possibility that the work of SPOs influ-
ences greater discipline at worst, and has no impact at
best. In turn, harsh discipline is linked with student isola-
tion (Mallett, 2016), which counters the mentorship and
education roles of SPOs. Furthermore, it is related to
lower levels of school belonging (Swartz et al., 2016),
which negatively influences SPO-student relationships as
reported by SPOs and students (Schlosser, 2014; : Theriot,
2016).
School Crime, Arrest and Safety
Student arrests have increased by 300–500% yearly since
Zero Tolerance policies were instituted, and the increased
suspension and expulsion rates are related to declines in
academic achievement, student cohesion, school satisfac-
tion (Mallett, 2016), lower graduation rates (Teske, 2011)
and an increased likelihood of arrest prospectively (Mona-
han, VanDerhei, Bechtold, & Cauffman, 2014). The SPO
workforce functions in this broader Zero Tolerance con-
text, which includes multiple policy shifts and is influ-
enced by the work of myriad stakeholder groups.
Knowledge about the influence of the work of SPOs is
critical to support evidence-based recommendations.
The best designed and most representative study of
SPO influence to date suggest that increases in the SPO
workforce in schools is related to increases in reporting of
crimes, higher likelihood of harsher punishments for stu-
dents, higher rates of weapon and drug crimes, and more
reporting of non-serious violent crimes, compared to rates
in schools without SPOs (Na & Gottfredson, 2013).
Specifically, this study is methodologically stronger than
most in that it employed a longitudinal design, included a
non-equivalent comparison, reported on change over time
using pre- and post- test, and used random sampling to
obtain a representative sample of high schools. Alhough
there is no evidence of a causal association and only prin-
cipal reports were used in this study, these results are cor-
roborated by another study using a representative sample
with multiple administrative reporters that assessed these
same patterns across elementary, middle, and high school
(Swartz et al., 2016). Despite its cross-sectional design,
this study found that schools with SPOs are more likely
to detect serious violence but are no more likely to be
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 11

safe, defined by recorded incidences of violence on school
property and administrator reports of perceived school cli-
mate measured by recording frequency of bullying, racial
tensions, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and student dis-
respect and disorder in the classroom. What is less clear,
however, is whether there is an increase in reporting of
crime or of actual delinquent behavior. However, data
from the Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention’s
nationally representative sample of youth in schools
demonstrate no changes in student-reported crime during
the same time period, as measured via anonymous youth
report (Kann et al., 2014). This provides some confidence
in the assertion that SPO presence is related to an increase
in criminalization in the absence of evidence for an
increase in criminal behavior. This general pattern is con-
sistent with criminology theory proposing that greater
surveillance created by SPO presence will increase the
reporting of crime and not necessarily engagement in
criminal behavior (Hirschfield, 2018). Empirical examina-
tions of this theory in the school context have been rare,
with one concrete exception: one study that compared per-
ceived to actual substance use, and found no difference in
behavioral measures of substance use among students in
schools with SPOs, despite reports from school adminis-
trators suggesting that they perceived reduction in student
substance use in these same schools (Bhabra, Hill, &
Ghate, 2004).
The patterns evidenced in the studies by Na and Got-
tfredson (2013) and Swartz et al. (2016) are also sup-
ported by other quasi-experimental studies with non-
equivalent or statistically controlled comparisons, which
suggest that SPO presence is related to increases in arrests
for disorderly conduct even after account for student pov-
erty (Theriot, 2009), non-serious violent crime (Na & Got-
tfredson, 2013), and possession or use of drugs (Zhang,
2018) despite there being no relationship between SPO
presence and student-reported substance use (Bhabra
et al., 2004). This overall pattern is qualified by the
results of three of the reviewed studies, which suggest that
schools with SPOs had no change in their overall crime
rates (Barnes, 2008), had lower arrest rates for simple
assaults (Theriot, 2009), and had fewer serious crimes
(Zhang, 2018). Importantly, the studies conducted by Bar-
nes (2008) and Theriot (2009) were the only two that
relied exclusively on archival crime and arrest data, sug-
gesting that the impact of SPOs, if any, may not be
detectable in arrest and crime data examined cross-sec-
tionally. This is potentially due to the influence of multi-
ple intervening variables on arrest and crime data (e.g.,
shifts in local policy), which are particularly difficult to
delineate when a study design is cross-sectional and does
not employ a comparison (Hirschfield, 2018). In support
of this idea, Brady et al. (2007) archival study on student
outcomes finds a reduction in crime rates across all
schools sampled, regardless of whether or not they
employed SPOs. Indeed, the study by Theriot (2009)
found that student poverty accounted for any observed
differences in overall arrest between schools with and
without SPOs. Furthermore, the study by Zhang (2018)
suggest that fewer serious crimes are reported in schools
with SPOs, after controlling for student socioeconomic
status, but this finding is evidenced only in cases where
SPO presence had been sustained in the school for 3 or
more years—underscoring the importance of reporting
change processes over time.
Furthermore, one quasi-experimental study employing
a comparison design with multiple stakeholders and stu-
dents suggests that SPO presence is unrelated to percep-
tions of student safety or positive social behaviors
(McKay, Covell, & McNeil, 2006). This pattern has also
been observed in other correlational studies, which sug-
gest that perceptions that SPOs promote safety are held
among relatively high achieving students, teachers, and
administrators (Steinberg, Allensworth, & Johnson, 2011).
Similarly, one of the only studies to compare perceived
safety with actual safety found that the influence of SPOs
was limited to the former and not the latter (Swartz et al.,
2016).
Taken together, the results of studies on the influence
of SPOs on school discipline are consistent with previous
reviews in suggesting, at best, a null effect and, at worst,
an increase in exclusionary discipline measured broadly
(Fisher & Hennessy, 2016; Hirschfield, 2018). Similarly,
the results of studies on the influence of SPOs on schools
safety, crime, and arrest are consistent with prior reviews
in suggesting a null effect on safety and increases in
crime and arrest, by most measures (Hirschfield, 2018;
Petrosino et al., 2012). This pattern is also supported by
Hirschfield’s (2018) study finding higher levels in off-
campus crime for schools with SPO programs. The influ-
ence of intervening variables, including poverty, has not
been addressed by most studies and we echo assertions by
all of the cited review studies to incorporate stronger
quasi-experimental designs or random assignment to con-
dition where possible.
Importantly, across studies, SPOs, law enforcement and
school administrators, students, and teachers agreed that
the goal of the SPO workforce is to promote school safety
(Casella, 2003). It is clear that the studies reviewed on the
influence of SPOs do not suggest that the SPO workforce
is uniformly succeeding in this goal. Thus, the recommen-
dations detailed in the following section are informed by
the integrative synthesis of studies included in this review,
and cast the question: how can SPOs be supported to pro-
mote school safety while reducing the potential negative
or null impact of their work?
12 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

Recommendations: Safer Schools through a More
Effective SPO Workforce
Taken together, the research reviewed above supports the
notion that SPOs engage in conflicting roles, and that
there is an increasing press to justify their presence in
schools by expanding the boundaries of those roles to
include mentorship without institutional support or train-
ing. This creates an overall context in which SPOs func-
tion in the service of social control. Evidence on the
influence of the work of SPOs further corroborates their
social control function. Though findings on SPO influ-
ence are mixed, the majority of evidence from the best-
designed studies suggests that SPO presence is associ-
ated with greater exclusionary discipline and arrest, espe-
cially for minor offenses (Hirschfield, 2018; Petrosino
et al., 2012). Moreover, there is no evidence that SPO
presence is associated with school safety, particularly
given the relatively low incidence of violence on school
campuses (Fisher & Hennessy, 2016; McKay et al.,
2006). Furthermore, there are no studies that examine
the association between removing SPO programs from
schools and school or student outcomes—these studies
simply have not been conducted. Given the state of this
evidence, the recommendations that follow underscore
limiting the size, roles, and function of SPOs to support
a smaller workforce through a more transparent partner-
ship with schools.
Bounded Roles, Supported by Training
There is a need and desire for specialized training for
SPOs that promotes competence, reduces the stigma asso-
ciated with being stationed in schools, and enhances job
satisfaction (Kelly & Swezey, 2015). This underscores a
need to create an employment context that supports and
incentivizes SPO training and allows qualified SPOs to
self-select to become school law enforcement instead of
law enforcement making selection decisions (Thurau &
Wald, 2009). Scholars also emphasize the importance of
collaborative models in which both schools and SPOs
have a say in selection decisions to promote collective
efficacy early on (Thomas et al., 2013), as well as models
that incorporate student voice (Thomas et al., 2013).
Furthermore, some specialized SPO training programs
have emphasized trauma-informed (Gill, Gottfredson, &
Hutzell, 2016) and restorative justice (Nussbaum, 2017)
trainings for SPOs in order to mitigate the daily stresses
of their work roles and allow for more effective responses
to struggling students (Raymond, 2010; Steinberg et al.,
2011). SPOs perceive these training programs with high
levels of satisfaction and consistent with supporting higher
quality student learning (Steinberg et al., 2011).
Furthermore, the conflicts and competing demands associ-
ated with the broadly construed roles of SPOs require
schools to reconsider whether SPOs should be enforcers
of school rules that do not constitute illegal behaviors
(Ofer, 2011). The findings from this review suggest that
these conflicting roles may create mistrust and fear among
students targeted by SPOs enforcement of rules and teach-
ers whose classroom management skills might be deval-
ued. Across studies reviewed, scholars suggest that
schools should not ask SPOs to enforce school rules,
should consider whether SPOs are responsible for issues
that occur off campus or not, and therefore should create
standards that outline when SPOs can respond to behav-
ioral issues, what constitutes an effective response, and
the circumstances under which SPOs will intervene using
particular strategies (suspensions, expulsions, arrests,
reported crimes; Fisher & Hennessy, 2016; Hirschfeld &
Katarzyna, 2011; Mayer & Furlong, 2010).
Enacting these recommendations can mitigate the con-
fusion that SPOs express in performing their roles,
strengthen SPO-student relationships, and promote effi-
cacy (Thomas et al., 2013; Thurau & Wald, 2009).
Reducing role confusion and promoting satisfaction can,
in turn, create a more sustainable workforce. This is par-
ticularly important because the ability of SPOs to work
with schools in sustainable ways is associated with posi-
tive perceptions of SPOs among school administrators and
linked to SPO programs’success in reducing crime and
arrest (Wolfe, Chrusciel, Rojek, Hansen, & Kaminski,
2017; Zhang, 2018). Furthermore, clarifying and limiting
the roles of the SPO workforce would likely result in need
for a smaller number of SPOs deployed at fewer schools.
While the literature reviewed suggest that this process will
likely reduce exclusionary discipline practices, it is not
clear whether reducing the number of SPOs in a school
will have other unintended consequences. This latter ques-
tion has simply not been examined in the empirical litera-
ture. However, as elaborated below, written agreements
between schools and law enforcement agencies can sup-
port processes that effectively limit SPO presence in
schools.
Create a Formal and Transparent School-police
Partnership
The best available recommendation to formalize a school-
SPO partnership is through a detailed Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) that can be created through a col-
laboration between SPOs, teachers, administrators, par-
ents, and students (Thomas et al., 2013; Thompson &
Alvarez, 2013). An MOU is a comprehensive agreement
between school and law enforcement that incorporates
written guidelines clarifying SPO work. Research suggests
Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17 13

that SPOs typically do not have knowledge of MOUs in
place or rarely refer to them (Thurau & Wald, 2009).
National studies estimate that about half of schools with
SPOs do not have MOUs, and the ones that do lack suffi-
cient detail (Cray & Weiler, 2011). Implementation of
MOUs is associated with a fewer court referrals, violent
felonies, and higher graduation rates, although impacts on
the SPO workforce have not been measured directly
(Teske, 2011). Importantly, MOUs can be created when
schools are interested in reducing or limiting the size and
role of SPOs because they reduce role confusion and pro-
vide clear guidelines that SPOs cannot criminalize stu-
dents’violation of school rules if students have not
committed a crime.
Furthermore, MOUs can reduce role confusion among
SPOs, promote understanding of the boundaries and
scope of the SPO workforce among education and law
enforcement agencies, and enhance student-SPO relation-
ships (Cray & Weiler, 2011; Thurau & Wald, 2009).
Effective MOUs typically can include descriptions of
SPO and administrator roles and responsibilities, pro-
cesses for selecting SPOs, minimum training require-
ments, how partners exchange and gather information,
program and SPO evaluation, student rights, and trans-
parency and accountability (Thomas et al., 2013). Fur-
thermore, Thomas et al. (2013) recommend including a
standard operating procedure that provides guidance to
SPOs about the offenses that require legal versus in-
school procedures, delineates the chain of command for
officers, and identifies exactly what—if any—education
and mentorship responsibilities SPOs hold (for an exam-
ple, see: https://b.3cdn.net/advancement/6000bf7319fcc5e
333_xvm6b2l1j.pdf).
Collaborate with SPOs to Create and Strengthen
Emergency Plans
Concretely, one of the most important characteristics of
the SPO workforce is their training and ability to respond
rapidly to emergency situations on school campuses (Bar-
nes, 2016). Yet, not all schools with SPOs have emer-
gency plans and protocols despite SPOs reporting that this
represents an area of expertise (James & McCallion,
2013). Scholars recommend that schools with or without
SPO presence on their campus, collaborate with SPOs to
create such rapid response protocols, and that these col-
laborations include student perspectives and promote col-
laboration between SPOs and other school stakeholders
(Travis & Coon, 2005; Zullig, Ghani, Collins, & Mat-
thews-Ewald, 2017). This advances the student relation-
ship-building goals that SPOs find valuable and important,
while leveraging the expertise of law enforcement toward
the goal of safety.
Involve SPOs with Cross-sector Collaborations with
Community Agencies
Across studies in this review, there is little evidence that
SPOs formally collaborate with any particular set of stake-
holders outside of school who can promote access to
resources that support the goals of SPOs to promote
school safety. Cross-system collaborations can create for-
mal partnerships between SPOs and health, mental health,
and other service providers (Thomas et al., 2013). Under
circumstances when SPOs are present in schools, this can
create a specific role for SPOs as liaisons who can con-
nect students and families with resources and, potentially,
avoid more severe sanctions (Teske, 2011). This repre-
sents a much more bounded role in the spirit of “mentor-
ship,”and leverages the fact that SPOs come into contact
with many struggling students. At the same time, this
approach does not require that SPOs directly provide the
emotional support they are not trained to provide.
Conclusion
In integrating research on the roles, training, and influence
of SPOs, an overarching conclusion of this review is that
this workforce experiences role confusion, ambiguous
partnerships with schools, and limited support to perform
the most satisfying aspects of their work (e.g., mentor-
ship). These workforce characteristics likely create a con-
text in which SPOs use the tools they are best positioned
to use—arrest and discipline. This, in turn, contributes to
the observed pattern: heightened criminalization of student
behavior. Synthesis of the research evidence reviewed in
this paper supports clarifying and limiting the roles of the
SPO workforce and questions the need for either the
growth or maintenance of the size of this workforce, par-
ticularly in the absence of SPO training and intentional
school-police partnerships that involve student and family
input. An overarching implication of these recommenda-
tions is that the presence of SPOs should not be consid-
ered inevitable; and that researchers can play an important
role in casting testable questions that critically examine
whether and to what extent SPOs should continue to be
placed in schools, under what circumstances, and for what
particular goals.
Furthermore, research in this area will require an ana-
lytic lens that considers the needs of underserved children
and families, and that centers race in this analysis given
the history of disproportionate negative legal system con-
sequences for people of color (Nolan, 2015)—an overar-
ching gap in current research on SPOs. Indeed, a
historical analysis of the proliferation of mass incarcera-
tion via processes of racial injustice—exemplified by the
14 Am J Community Psychol (2019) 0:1–17

policing and criminalization of black and brown spaces,
experiences, and lives—is central to our understanding of
the social justice implications of school policing (Thomp-
son, 2017). Research that has examined these dynamics
finds that schools disproportionately target black girls for
school discipline in ways that betray implicit and explicit
gender and racial biases (Crenshaw, 2014). These school-
based processes have been linked to sustained pathways
of criminal justice system involvement and contribute to
the proliferation of mass incarceration for people of color
(Javdani, Sadeh, & Verona, 2011). Thus, we echo recom-
mendations for scholars to employ systems accountability
frameworks in their research that directly assess the ways
in which current approaches, such as SPO programs, can
re-produce power structures that further marginalize disen-
franchised groups (Jumarali, Mandiyan, & Javdani, in
press), and underscore that rigorous experimental designs
have an ethical imperative to be “blind to condition, but
not to oppression”(Javdani, Singh, & Sichel, 2017).
Toward these goals, it is hoped that the recommendations
from this study can be employed to first limit, bound, for-
malize, and support the SPO role and, next, to re-imagine
the role of SPOs even more boldly in the vision of school
safety for all youth rather than with a lens of fear and
social control that disproportionately impacts the lives of
youth on the margins.
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