Resources on Disproportionate Suspension Rates and Law Enforcement in Schools
2 min read
A quick and incomplete list for some research I'm doing on the use of law enforcement (often called School Resource Officers) in schools. From what I have seen (and if I'm wrong here, please set me straight in the comments and I'll update the post) districts don't track the use of SROs in discipline for behavior referrals for minor offenses in any uniform way, if at all.
If this is accurate, we have a population of students who face out of school suspension for minor offenses, combined with a referral to law enforcement for the same offense - and we have no information about the number of students affected by this practice.
As a side note, in the 19 states that still allow corporal punishment, there are districts where SROs or local law enforcement deliver the beatings. Again, I have not seen any data quantifying how widespread this practice is.
- November 2013 - ACLU Report - Beyond Zero Tolerance
- March, 2014 - pdf from US DOE Office of Civil Rights
- June 22, 2013 - NPR story on Restorative Justice
- June 2, 2013 - NPR story on the effects of suspensions
- April, 2013 - Report from the Civil Rights Project on dispoportionate rates of suspension
- February, 2013 - In Florida, Bad Behavior Becomes a Crime
Updates
Items added after the original post.
- You Canât Fix What You Donât Look At: Acknowledging Race in Addressing Racial Discipline Disparities - added January 7, 2015
- The National Clearinghouse on Supportive School Discipline - added January 7, 2015