Education Under Arrest: The case against police in schools

School resources officers and other police drive up arrests for behavior issues that can be addressed inside the school, according to a November 2011 report by the Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit that advocates reducing the use of incarceration and the justice system.

The number of school resource officers increased 38 percent between 1997 and 2007. When schools had law enforcement on campus, school officials were less likely to handle discipline issues. The report cites a three-year study of a Southeastern school district which determined that schools with school resource officers had nearly five times the number of arrests for disorderly conduct as schools without school resource officers, even when controlling for the economic disadvantage of the school. This led to more student arrests and more students entering the juvenile justice system, which the report argues is both expensive and harmful for youth.

The report recommends that school districts remove all law enforcement officers from schools and urges schools to make a concerted effort to avoid using a law enforcement response for all but the most serious offenses.

Read the report.