“It’s Completely Ineffective”: Examining School-Based Actors’ Perspectives on School Security Measures

• In Event: New Perspectives on School Punishment and Security

Abstract

School security technologies, including online monitoring software, security cameras, and vape detectors are increasingly common in U.S. schools, though there is limited evidence of their effectiveness. Despite their proliferation of security technologies and concerns about their negative side effects, little research has examined how school-based actors experience them. Here, we investigated how students, teachers, and administrators across four high schools understood and experienced school security measures. Participants voiced several frustrations with security technologies, citing glitches, explaining that they did not always work as intended, nor did they curb undesired behavior. Nevertheless, most students, teachers, and administrators expressed a desire for security to stay the same or called for more security measures, suggesting that technologies would improve. Students and teachers in the only school receiving Title I funds expressed distinct perspectives. Here, teachers suggested that security needed to stay in place because they were no longer free to discipline students, while lamenting the “prison-like” environment. Meanwhile, the students expressed frustration with security measures but viewed them as necessary for parents to feel safe sending their children to school. These findings speak to the durability of school security measures and the role of school-based actors in keeping them in place.

Authors

• Abigail Beneke, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Ben Fisher, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Catalina Valdez, University of Wisconsin-Madison