The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Report: Cops in schools increase arrests
NEW HAVEN — An analysis of state data shows that the presence of police officers in Connecticut schools leads to a higher average of student arrests, but the impact on student achievement is negligible.
In a report released Thursday called “Policing Connecticut’s Hallways: The Prevalence and Impact of School Resource Officers in Connecticut,” New Haven-based policy research group Connecticut Voices for Children analyzed state data comparing districts with school resource officers to those without.
“Given a national rise in school shootings, stationing police in schools may seem like an intuitive way to ensure the safety of America’s most valuable resource — its children. However, when SROs are present in a school, administrators may defer disciplinary duties to SROs,” wrote researchers Camara Stokes Hudson, Lauren Ruth and Wendy Waithe Simmons in the report’s executive summary. “Unlike security guards and school administrators, SROs have the power to arrest students. Experiencing arrest can be traumatizing for children who are arrested, their families, and other observers who may be present. Even one arrest can result in children experiencing reduced access to future educational and employment opportunities.”
One of the report’s findings is that Latino students at schools with SROs are six times more likely to be referred to law enforcement than Latino students at schools without uniformed police officers.
This year, New Haven school administrators presented the Board of Education with data that black boys made up 41 percent of all suspensions in New Haven’s schools over the last five years, although they comprise 18.6 percent of students in the district.
Finance committee members criticizing Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks for her spending priorities said they
would like to see more financial resources put into efforts to reduce racial disparities in punishment.
“We should be repurposing this money to help these children,” said finance committee chairman Jamell Cotto.
According to the report, black children at schools with SROs in Connecticut, which included 19 New Haven schools in 2015-16 when the data was analyzed, were nearly twice as likely to be referred to law enforcement than in schools without officers in schools.
The report also found that there was no statistical significance in academic performance on state testing along racial and ethnic lines between students at schools with SROs and those without.
“Of note is that Smarter Balance ELA and Math scores are lower for in schools with SROs present, though not significantly, and they are lower for ‘all students’ than for White students. This suggests that within groups of children of color, the presence of SROs may still have an impact on academic achievement in a way that this data set does not allow us to measure,” the report said.
Recently, New Haven’s emergency responders reviewed the school district’s school shooting protocol. Earlier this month, officials participated in a fictional scenario exercise to review the proper protocol in the city’s police and fire training academy. SROs are included in that protocol as a crucial link for communication and containment.
Connecticut Voices for Children researches made four policy recommendations: that the General Assembly request studies on the efficacy of SROs; that school districts have a transparent memorandum of understanding on the use of SROs, that questions about SROs be included in school climate surveys for all districts using SROs and that school districts with SROs included information as to students’ legal rights in student handbooks.