Safety for Whom? Reckoning With a Police Definition of Reality in School Safety Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Engaging the School-Prison Nexus: Social Contexts of School Discipline (Table 11)

Abstract

In this paper, we interrogate notions of ‘safety’ as it is defined in the empirical literature about school police. We argue that ‘safety’, when defined and measured through indicators like school shootings and disciplinary infractions, offers a reductionist conceptualization and obscures the harms of police in schools. This conceptualization not only limits the scope of our understanding of the landscape of school safety, but also reinforces the presumed need for school police. We conclude with a call to reject the naturalized presence of police in schools and in research about schools, and instead to embrace abolitionist safety.

Authors

• Hannah Carson Baggett, Auburn University

• Kaitlyn Selman, Illinois State University

• LaKendrick Richardson, Auburn University