Student Perceptions of School Resource Officers and Threat Reporting

• NCJ Number: 307188
• Journal: Journal of School Violence Volume: 21 Issue: 2 Dated: 2022 Pages: 222-236
• Author(s): Caroline Crichlow-Ball; Dewey Cornell; Francis Huang
• Date Published: 2022
• Length: 15 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2017-CK-BX-0007
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Award: Improvement of School Climate Assessment in Virginia Secondary Schools

Annotation

This assessment of Virginia high school students found agreement among students that the presence of a school resource officer (SRO) made them feel safer at school; although correlational, these results suggest that positive relationships with SROs encourage students to report threats of peer violence.

Abstract

This statewide assessment of Virginia high school students (n = 99,358) found that the majority of Black (64%), Hispanic (72%), White (71%), and other racial/ethnic identity (71%) students agreed the presence of a school resource officer (SRO) made them feel safer at school. Although correlational, these results suggest that positive relationships with SROs encourage students to report threats of peer violence. National debate over law enforcement in schools has largely overlooked student reporting of violent threats to SROs. Logistic regressions revealed that positive perceptions of the SRO and frequency of speaking with the SRO were associated with increased willingness to report a peer who brought a gun to school or talked about killing someone. Perceptions of the SRO interacted with student race/ethnicity such that favorable views reduced disparities in nonwhite students’ willingness to report a peer with a gun.