Formalizing and expanding school resource officer presence: Examining the influence on student arrests

Purpose: In the 2016–17 school year a Florida county integrated and formalized their school resource officer (SRO) program while simultaneously expanding SRO presence into the elementary schools. This study examines whether these changes influenced the number of school-based arrests.

Methods: Descriptive statistics explored demographic and offense characteristics of school arrests of juveniles in the county. Interrupted time series analysis was used to examine arrest trends over a six-year period and explore whether formalization and expansion of the county's SRO program immediately impacted student arrests.

Results: Results showed that contrary to the proffered hypothesis, the number of school arrests decreased by 5% post-intervention. Interrupted time series analysis indicated that the new SRO program did not have a statistically significant impact on total number of student arrests, but disaggregating the data revealed a significant increase to felony arrests and arrests completed by certain law enforcement agencies.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that expanding SRO presence into elementary schools does not automatically result in an increase in student arrests. However, the reorganization and formalization of SRO programming attempted in the county did not appear to universally prevent the criminalization of student behaviors.