By Benjamin Fisher, Associate Professor of Civil Society and Community Studies, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The question of whether to have police in schools is a controversy that has existed for years. Do they make schools safer? Do they make arrests that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline? Do students feel safer with police in schools? Are there more suspensions when police are present?
Although no single study has been able to answer these—and other—questions, there is a growing body of evidence that can help us understand the dynamics around the impacts of police in schools. Our recent Campbell systematic review and meta-analysis, titled “School‐based law enforcement strategies to reduce crime, increase perceptions of safety, and improve learning outcomes in primary and secondary schools: A systematic review” offers a synthesis of this body of research.
Campbell reviews are a gold standard for transparent summaries of all the research on one question. The methodology is planned, peer reviewed and published before work starts. The review itself is also peer reviewed by leading experts before publication.
What did our study do?
This meta-analysis synthesized information from 32 quantitative studies that address the impacts of police in schools on three main types of outcomes: those related to (a) crime and behavior problems, (b) perceptions of safety, and (c) learning. We included studies that compared the outcomes before and after police were added to schools, or that compared outcomes in schools with and without police.
Studies from any country were eligible to be included, but the vast majority were from the United States. Within these 32 studies, we identified 1,002 individual measures of the association between having police in schools and the outcomes of interest.
Having police in schools is associated with more punishment of students
The most common outcomes that were examined in the 32 studies were related to crime and behavior problems. Across these studies, our meta-analytic models showed that police in schools were related to a statistically significant increase in the broad category of crime and behavior problems.
However, this category encompassed a wide range of outcomes so we re-analyzed the data focusing on specific types of crime or behavior problems, including: exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspensions), criminal justice system contact (e.g., arrest), violence, substance-related outcomes, and weapon-related outcomes.
Among these models, only the one focused on exclusionary discipline was statistically significant. This means that the existing body of research collectively indicates that having police in schools is not associated with a statistically significant reduction in a variety of measures of crime and violence, but is associated with more punishment of students.
These findings held true even when we considered differences in the designs of the original studies. It is important to note that the methodological strength of the original studies varied, so we hesitate to claim that these are cause-and-effect relationships.
There were few studies that addressed perceptions of safety or learning outcomes.
What does this mean?
As the United States has continued to wrestle with the problem of school violence, putting police in schools has been a common and expensive intervention. However, this investment does not appear to have paid off, with the existing research showing no improvement for school safety.
Instead, there has been an increase in excluding students from school, a practice that is developmentally harmful for students. If we want to make schools safer for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, it will be important to invest in evidence-based strategies rather than ones that are ineffective and do harm.