Typologies and Predictors of Visible School Security Measures Across Diverse Middle and High School Settings

• In Event: Preventing Youth Violence

Abstract

Many schools have turned to visible security measures in an attempt to reduce victimization among students. This study explored the ways these security measures are used in schools to identify patterns of relationships between those security measures and whether certain security measures tend to co-occur. Additionally, we examined what school contexts predict patterns of the security measures utilized. Data came from multiple waves of administrator reports in the School Survey on Crime and Safety (N = 10,626) and student reports in the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (N = 38,707). Latent class analysis was used to identify and describe the most common patterns of visible security measure utilization in schools and the student, school, and environmental predictors of this pattern utilization. The six types of school security measures included were: controlled building access, metal detectors, contraband sweeps, photo identification, security cameras, and security guards. Both administrators and students indicated the presence of three classes of school security measures, although the meaning of the classes differed between administrators and students. Various community-, school-, and student-level predictors were associated with membership in a given latent class, including urbanicity, school size, and racial composition. Policy implications are discussed.

Authors

• Benjamin Fisher, Vanderbilt University

• Katarzyna Steinka-Fry, Vanderbilt University

• Emily Tanner-Smith, Vanderbilt University

• Mark W. Lipsey, Vanderbilt University