School Resource Officers Hurt Schools

The police system is corrupt in all its forms. In schools around the country, school resource officers continue to contribute to a racist system and endanger students.  The American Bar Association (a group of lawyers) found that,

“In the 1999-2000 school years in Connecticut, nearly 52% of suspensions of kindergartners went to African Americans, 35.2% to Latinos and 12.1% to Whites”. Why must we continue to excuse racism? 

School resource officers are also just plain ineffective. The National Center for Education Statistics found that schools that use law enforcement are 20% more likely to have a violent incident than other schools that don’t have cops, and they are also 13% more likely to have a serious violent incident. These officers do not deter crime, and instead negatively impact the school. 

 In the Parkland shooting, the school resource officer put his bulletproof vest on and sat in his car, while the shooter was hurting and killing students. This officer had taken the training to become a school officer, which includes training to stop school shooters. He directly endangered students with his cowardice. 

It has been shown time and time again that the job of SRO helps a few, and hurts the rest. Police do not belong in schools.