Policing Childhood: Effects of School Resource Officers on School Suspensions and Arrests

• In Event: Student Forum Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 1: K-12 Education Policy, Schooling, and Discipline

Abstract

“That same police officer I had asked for help, came over to me and arrested me, in front of everyone, then escorted me to the police car handcuffed - but I didn’t do what he said I did” said a youth in Toronto as I sat in a school board hearing, with his mother and other community parents and organizers. This was not the first time I was listening to a Black youth recount being falsely accused and arrested at their school. The controversial School Resource Officer (SRO) program is one of many iterations of historically punitive school disciplinary policies. In Toronto, Canada, it was initiated in 2008, assigning uniformed police officers to schools. Upon the SRO program’s inception, an increase in school-related arrests of racialized youth in low-income Toronto neighbourhoods prompted parent and community advocacy against the program. This sparked a review by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which resulted in trustees ending the program in 2017.

Ontario Bill 33 was recently passed and requires all school boards in the province of Ontario (including TDSB) to implement the SRO program wherever the programs are offered to schools in the city. This study is increasingly urgent and timely due to these recent policy developments. My research draws from theories of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) and its intersection with education, also known as the School to Prison Pipeline or School-to-Prison Nexus, to understand the increased rates of punitive exclusionary discipline with the use of SROs and the racial disparities accompanying. I hypothesize that the removal of the SRO program in the TDSB is associated with a decrease in suspension rates and school related arrests, in comparison to neighbouring school boards that continue to use the SRO program. This paper presents descriptive analysis of disparities in suspension rates, youth arrests and statistical regression findings of this study.

Author

• Alice Romo, OISE, University of Toronto