Examining Florida’s Expansion of Required Reporting of School Incidents to Law Enforcement

• In Event: School Discipline in the 21st Century: Social Control Through Security and Punishment Approaches

Abstract

This study examines a recent policy change in Florida that substantially alters the required reporting of school incidents to law enforcement. In July of 2023, Florida passed a policy that required almost all school incidents reported to the state to also be reported to law enforcement. The analysis projects the potential impact of this policy on law enforcement involvement in schools based on prior years’ rates of incident reporting. We leveraged publicly available SESIR data from the most recently reported pre-policy change year. The FLDOE publishes annual SESIR incident data, both for the state and individual districts and schools. SESIR incidents are reported as counts of each of the 26 incident types. The results demonstrate the potential for reports of school incidents to law enforcement to increase by over 43,000 reports, more than doubling the prior year. Increased reporting is projected to vary by school district and incidents, with fights, physical attacks, and threats increasing substantially. Our projections demonstrate that the impact of the changes in required law enforcement reporting would vary considerably across school districts. Our results demonstrate the potential implications of this policy shift – both for improving safety but also in ways that may result in undesirable outcomes.

Authors

• F. Chris Curran, University of Florida

• Jennifer Kent, University of Florida

• Ann Marie Cotman, University of Florida

• Katharine Harris, University of Florida