4 School-Based Policing, School Shootings, and the Color Line

INTRODUCTION

With the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, people across the United States and around the world are taking to the streets to advocate for change during a global pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic along with the BLM movement have exposed the massive inequalities within American society. For instance, a recent Oxfam America report, highlights how white shareholders are getting richer while record unemployment rates rage the country showing both gender and racial discrimination (OXFAM 2020). Of the many demands for change focused on ending police brutality and institutional and systemic racism, one demand is to end school-based policing. With the protests beginning in May 26th, 2020, change happened quickly, in certain places, as many school districts cut their contracts with the local police departments. By June 23rd, 2020, Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, and Oakland school districts had cut police ties in their schools (Barnum 2020). This massive BLM movement created quick change within the education system and schools across the country. The BLM movement then brings up many questions including: should other school districts cut their ties with local police departments? How effective are police officers in creating a safe learning environment for schools? How does the presence of police officers on school campuses impact minority students of color?

These questions and the recent BLM movement protests led to my interest in analyzing the history of school-based policing in public schools in the United States. When reading about the classical sociological theorists, I thought about how their frameworks and concepts are applicable to school-based policing and school shootings. I wanted to use the case of school-based policing to understand the connection between education and criminal justice institutions and how this connection influences minority students, specifically using W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of the color line. Within this history of school-based policing, I also wanted to analyze the emergence and impact of school shootings in modern society and how they resulted in increased security and school resources officers (SRO) presence on public school campuses, while using Emile Durkheim’s theory of social integration and cohesion and Max Weber’s concept of bureaucracy.

The theories and concepts presented by the classical sociological theorists are important in understanding modern issues as many problems in modern society have not disappeared but have simply changed. The modern literature and empirical research around school-based policing and school shootings closely align with the history of mass incarceration and the policies that continue to discriminate, oppress, and deny freedom to people of color. This was a clear connection to the work of Michelle Alexander and Du Bois’ concept of the color line. Considering school-based policing also requires an analysis of school shootings that emerged in the late twentieth century prompting government funding for programs that promote police officer presence on public school campuses. The research on school shootings generally emphasizes a psychological perspective in analyzing the mental health of the shooter, especially in the media coverage of these school shootings. In contrast, the recent sociological studies on school shootings revolve around the concept of organizational deviance and connect well with the works of both Durkheim and Weber.

In this paper, I will first outline my framework of the classical sociological theorists and their legacies. This will include the works of Du Bois, Durkheim, and Weber as well as more contemporary sociological theorists that have used and expanded upon these three founders’ works. I will then state the case of school-based policing and school shooting using recent literature on these topics. This will include the history and statistics analyzing the effects of school-based policing and SROs on students, the various approaches to create safer school environments, and an analysis on school shootings using a sociological perspective. I will then provide my analysis that uses the classical sociological theorists’ frameworks to understand the issues around school-based policing and school shootings. Using Du Bois’ concept of the color line, I argue that school-based policing is another institutional policy that oppresses students of color and denies them of their freedom and education. I bring in the contemporary scholar, Alexander, who furthers Du Bois’ theories in her work on mass incarceration. I draw parallels between the era of mass incarceration and school-based policing to show how America’s education system reflects the broader policies in society. Using Durkheim’s theory of social integration and cohesion combined with Weber’s concept of bureaucracy, school shootings are the result of the lack of social integration in American public schools and the bureaucratization of schools leading more students to fall through the cracks. Du Bois, Alexander, Weber, and Durkheim’s theories and concepts all intersect to provide a fuller picture and contextual analysis of school-based policing and school shootings in American public schools.

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES ON RACE AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION

Race is a crucial concept to analyze school-based policing in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder of conflict race theory and American sociology, provides an important theoretical framework to understand race in American society and his work still applies to modern issues, such as school-based policing. In Du Bois’ essay “Bound by the Color Line,” he shows the history of Black Americans from slavery to emancipation and disenfranchisement to segregation. Du Bois states that “the significance of America in the world is not freedom, democracy, education and economic security but rather alliance with colonial imperialism and class dictatorship in order to enforce the denial of freedom to the colored people of the world” (Du Bois 1946: 65). Unfortunately, American history continues on this path where American society and institutions continue to deny freedom to the people of color of the world, as I will show in this paper analyzing how school-based policing is another program that denies the freedom of education to primarily minority students in the United States.

The legacy of Du Bois is seen in the works of Michelle Alexander, Karida Brown, and Jose Itzigsohn; scholars who have created a more contemporary framework to continue Du Bois’ work in analyzing race and the color line in the United States. Alexander furthers Du Bois’ points as she writes about Jim Crow laws and mass incarceration. She makes this parallel between these policies that continues to perpetuate Du Bois’ color line that denies the freedom of people of color in the United States. Alexander sees both Jim Crow and mass incarceration as racial caste systems claiming they emerged “due to a desire among white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and racial biases of poor and working-class whites for political or economic gain” (Alexander 2010: 237). Alexander, like Du Bois, points out the political disenfranchisement of the African American community through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and felon disenfranchisement laws (Alexander 2010). This connects to Du Bois’ essay addressing America’s so-called democracy and the disenfranchisement that prevents freedom and democracy. Similarly, Alexander analyzes the historical context and color line in American society and institutions, I will use this framework to show that school-based policing is another example of allegedly race-neutral policies that were implemented to sustain America’s racial caste system.

Another example of Du Bois’ legacy and relevancy in contemporary sociology is seen in the work of Brown and Itzigsohn. When looking at school-based policing through the framework of Du Bois’ concept of the color line, Brown and Itzigsohn provide key concepts and connections while outlining a contemporary DuBoisian sociological framework. One key idea is how Du Bois’ work expanded upon Karl Marx’s work of conflict theory by centralizing his analysis on race, subjectivity, colonialism, racialized class power, and the view of capitalism as a global social formation (Itzigsohn and Brown 2020). Du Bois analyzed the intersectionality between race and class, which created a theoretical understanding of capitalism different from Marx. Marx provides an analysis of capitalism that was centered around class struggle and division between the bourgeoisie and proletariat classes. Marx and Frederick Engels famously begin the Communist Manifesto stating, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” (Marx and Engels 1848: 14). Therefore, Du Bois modifies Marx and Engels’ class analysis by centering race, racism, and colonialism in his understanding of capitalism.

Though Du Bois saw the intersectionality between class and race, one of his weaknesses is his development in the intersectionality between race, class, and gender. This weakness can be supplemented with the classical works of Anna Julia Cooper and the work of Kimberle Crenshaw in more contemporary literature. Cooper was an early sociology founder who outlined racial consciousness and addressed the “Race Problem” in the United States (Cooper 1892). She also was a Black feminist and brought up theories of intersectionality as she famously stated that “only when Black women achieve emancipation will all Black people achieve emancipation” (Itzigsohn and Brown 2020: 87). This framework is important because the voices of women in classical sociological theory are constantly suppressed, leading the contemporary sociological literature to focus on the male perspective. This is seen in the works around the school-to-prison pipeline that primarily focus on black and brown boy’s experiences as scholars such as Monique W. Morris argue that this literature fails to capture the education-system pathways to incarceration for Black girls (Morris 2012: 3). Using this intersectional framework provided by Cooper and Crenshaw, I will explain how school-based policing fits within the larger context of American society and institutions that continues to establish this color line.

Returning to the work of Brown and Itzigsohn, I will also be using their framework of a contemporary Du Boisian sociology that transcends Du Bois’ framework by incorporating issues and ideas that Du Bois did not fully address. I will include some of Brown and Itzigsohn’s methodological pillars to establish a framework to analyze school-based policing and school shootings. One of the pillars they provide is relationality, which analyzes the broader contexts of power in relation to the local contexts and histories acknowledging that the development of institutions, forms of action, and ideas are not isolated from the broader context, policies, and powers (Itzigsohn and Brown 2020: 197-198). I will use this pillar in analyze the broader context of mass incarceration and its effects on American public schools. Another methodological pillar they provide is historicity where the research is situated in the historical context. I will use this pillar in understanding the historical context of the creation of SRO programs and school-based policing while also analyzing the emergence of school shootings and its implications.

Within the history of school-based policing the emergence of the increase in school shootings led to changes in school campuses. I will briefly analyze school shootings to show how American society chose to respond. To analyze the issue of school shootings, I will use the work of Emile Durkheim and his theory on suicide and social integration and cohesion. In Durkheim’s Suicide (1897), he provides different types of suicide including egoistic, altruistic, fatalistic, and anomic suicide. Durkheim analyzes the act of suicide through a sociological perspective instead of the more commonly used psychological perspective. He used his work in Suicide to present his theory on social integration and cohesion. I will be primarily focusing on egoistic suicide, which is the suicide resulting from the loss of cohesion in society (Durkheim 1897).

Durkheim’s theories are used by contemporary sociologists to explain terrorism, suicide bombers, and the function of friendships. Dana Snellens argues that suicide bombers are an example of Durkheim’s altruistic fatalistic suicide that are a product of a society which is disrupted by western political systems based on industrial values imposing themselves on more religious and traditional societies (Snellens nd: 10). Ruth Wallace and Shirley Hartly use Durkheim’s work on religion and his lesser-known work on friendships to show friendship as a functional alternative to religion in modern society (Wallace and Hartley nd: 93). I will use the Durkheimian perspective, like Snellens, to analyze the phenomenon of the American school shooter. In the context of the United States, the society at large tends to have the values of freedom, education, and individualism. I argue that school shootings in the United States should be considered as an egoistic type of suicide. I also want to expand on Wallace and Hartley’s work to understand if in the era of school shootings friendships among students, are not a stable alternative for religion in modern society. This is important to note because it shows there has not been a sufficient alternative for the function of religion from traditional society leading to many issues and problems seen in schools across the United States.

Along with Durkheim, Max Weber’s concept of bureaucracy can be used in the analysis of school shootings and the lack of integration. Weber’s theory on rationalization led him to develop the concept of bureaucracy, which Weber defined with five key elements including “efficiency, predictability, quantifiability, control through substituting nonhuman technology for human judgement, and the irrationality of rationality” (Ritzer 2013: 5). The bureaucracy then creates a hierarchy that divides labor into specialized roles where people within the bureaucracy accomplish their work impersonally according to rules and regulations. I will use this concept to show the traits of Weber’s bureaucracy within education and, particularly in schools.

SCHOOL-BASED POLICING AND SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

School-based policing in the United States emerged through SRO programs which first appeared in the 1950s but were not widely implemented until the late 1990s (Lindberg 2015). When addressing SRO presence on public school campuses it is important to understand zero-tolerance school disciplinary policies which support SRO programs in the United States. These policies and programs were largely a response to the fears centered on violence and can be traced back to the 1980s and the “get tough” mentality promoted by the War on Drugs (Lindberg 2015: 22). In this section, I will provide a brief history of SROs on public school campuses, the statistics of the increase in both SROs and violence on public school campuses, the contemporary sociological frameworks used to analyze school-based policing, and existing approaches in addressing school shootings.

In the late 1950s, police officers’ presence on school campuses started with the “Police-School Liaison Program” in Flint, Michigan with the intention of improving relationships between the police and youth. Though the first program placing police on school campuses was in the late 1950s, school-based policing and SRO programs only increased in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This increase was due to the local and national media demonizing young people of color and in 1967 the President’s Commission of Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice identified youth as “the biggest impediment to overall crime reduction” (French-Marcelin and Hinger 2017: 4). The perception of youth, especially youth of color, led to urban school districts in 40 states having a form of school-based policing on their school campuses by 1972 (French-Marcelin and Hinger 2017). The next dramatic increase of police presence on schools in the early 2000s was largely due to the increases in the US Department of Justice Office of Community Policing Services’ (COPS) funding for SRO programs and the establishment of “COPS in Schools” (CIS) grant program in 1999 after the school shooting at Columbine High School (Na and Gottfredson 2013: 644). In the twenty first century, the United States’ public school then saw a substantial increase from 34,000 SROs in 2003 to 52,100 SROs in 2016 (NCES 2016). The increase of SROs show that this was one of the main approaches in addressing school safety in the United States.

The increase in school shootings led to many initiatives and approaches to reduce school crime. Benjamin Fisher and Deanna Devlin state that the SRO program was one of the main initiatives to maintain physical safety in schools (Fisher and Devlin 2020). Scholars also note there are two competing philosophies, get-tough and support-oriented approaches, taken to improve school safety (Collier et. al 2018: 712). With the threat of school shootings, the United States government seemed to emphasize the get-tough approach as the widely used solution seen in programs like CIS.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2016), SROs have increased especially within the twenty-first century. In the table below, it shows the huge increases in public school resource officers from the years 2003-04 to 2015-16. From the numbers in the table, SROs were in 32% of public schools in the school year of 2003-04 which increased over the next four years to 35% in 2007-08. There is then a slight drop of SROs on public schools in the school year 2009-10 to 31% of public schools with SROs, but over the next five years this percentage jumps to around 42% in the school year of 2015-16. This is interesting because there is a correlation to the dramatic increase of SRO presence on public school campuses with the school year in which the student demographic in American public schools started becoming majority minority in 2014 (NCES 2014).

Source: National Center for Education Statistics (2016)

Along with the increase of SROs on public school campuses the number of incidents on school campuses did not show a significant decline, and even had a huge increase between the years of 2013 to the more recent year of 2019. In 2013, there were 51 reported incidents on school campuses involving gun fire, including 26 deaths, six of which were suicides, and 37 injuries (Everytown 2020). These numbers all increased in 2015 where there were 66 incidents involving gunfire on school campuses in the United States with 32 deaths, six of which were suicides, and 55 injuries. In more recent years, there have been a dramatic increase in these numbers with 105 incidents of gunfire on school campuses, with 61 deaths, seven of which were suicides, and 91 injuries in the year of 2018 (Everytown 2020). These numbers are evident of the growing issue of gun violence on school campuses in the United States as well as the ineffectiveness of SRO presence to reduce violence in schools. In recent years, particularly after the school shooting occurring in Parkland, Florida in the year 2018, the creation of youth movements such as March for our Lives brought the focus on gun control policies and the anti-gun movement in the United States. The students mobilized the largest single day of protest against gun violence in United States history, advocating for different approaches to address school safety (March for our Lives 2020).

The contemporary theories commonly used to support SRO presence to improve school safety on school campuses are opportunity theories of crime and deterrence. Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson argue that structural changes in routine activity patterns can influence crime rates, focusing on three elements including (1) motivated offenders, (2) suitable targets, and (3) the absence of capable guardians against a violation (Cohen and Felson 1979). Thus, the SRO would play the role of the capable guardianship in schools to reduce crime and violence. Deterrence and rational choice theory provide another framework supporting SRO presence on school campuses used by scholars such as Rose Matsueda, Derek Kreager, and David Huizinga (2006). This framework theorizes that SROs will be a deterring factor on school campuses as the students rationally think about the likelihood of getting caught.

The conflicting contemporary frameworks that argue against the theories on crime and deterrence are seen in the works of Paul Hirschfield, Aaron Kupchik, and Torin Monahan. Hirschfield shows the increased collaboration of schools and juvenile justice system which have blurred the traditional boundaries between the two institutions (Hirschfield 2008). Thus, Hirschfield indicates that SROs can lead to increased criminalization of students. Kupchik and Monahan agree with Hirschfield in seeing the growing link between schools and juvenile justice systems. Kupchik and Monahan start with the “socializing effects of schools to analyze armed police officers and technological surveillance systems on school campuses” (Kupchik and Monahan 2006: 618). They consider the negative effects of the presence of SRO on school campuses, including “personal surveillance, ubiquitousness of law enforcement and outsourcing of school discipline—each of which enhances the socialization of students into a society marked by mass incarceration and post-industrialization” (Kupchik and Monahan 2006: 622). These are important perspectives to understand when looking into the school-based policing and the effects of SROs on school campuses. These two different theories provide conflicting expectations when studying the effects SROs have on school campuses, often leading to policy that considers these theories, particularly the deterrence and crime theories, over empirical research and evidence.

In the case of school shootings, the response tends to focus more on the psychological perspective and problems of the individual student (Fox and Harding 2005: 69). When analyzing school shootings through a sociological perspective, scholars like Cybelle Fox and David Harding argue that it is a form of organizational deviance. They state that “school shootings can be understood as instances of organizational deviance, in which events that are created or in organizations do not conform to an organization’s goal or expectations and produce unanticipated and harmful outcomes” (Fox and Harding 2005: 91). The authors, conducting a qualitative study on three specific school shooters, find that certain students fall through the cracks and the root of this organizational deviance is information loss on the student. Information is lost among the different educators as certain signs of unstable students are not put together as educators only get bits and pieces of information. At the end of their study, Fox and Harding do not argue for increased police or security on school campuses, but they argue for better training for educators and increase specialization in mental health and social and emotion issues (Fox and Harding 2005). This would provide more support for students as well as establish deeper connections and integration between students and the school.

Kupchik’s (2010) work on SROs would agree with Fox and Harding analysis on school shooting and the appropriate response and solution to this growing issue. Kupchik acknowledges that educators who care for their students work within a system that “prioritizes rules over children’s needs, that focuses on punishment over problem solving, that alienates youth rather than integrating them into school, and that unnecessarily punishes and hurts the future chances of many (Kupchik 2010: 194). Thus, the sociological perspective is important to note when thinking of both the cause of school shootings and the responses to address the issue.

SCHOOL-BASED POLICING: PART OF THE PROBLEM

In this section, I will argue in favor of understanding the importance of analyzing school-based policing and school shooting through the perspectives by Du Bois, Alexander, Weber, and Durkheim. The founders of sociology and their legacy provide a framework to analyze the issues and problems that still exist today in society. I will present two subsections including one on Du Bois’ concept on the color line and another focusing on Durkheim’s theory of social integration and cohesion and Weber’s concept of bureaucracy. In the first section, I will use Du Bois’ concept of the color line to view the problems in school-based policing today while incorporating Alexander’s work to bridge Du Bois’ analysis to contemporary issues. The second section will include my analysis using a Durkheimian perspective to address the problem of school shooting through a sociological perspective instead of a psychological, security, and surveillance perspective. I argue that the concepts and theories provided by Du Bois, Durkheim, and Weber are important in analyzing the issues of school-based policing and school shootings.

School-Based Policing and the Color Line

When looking at the history of school-based policing and zero tolerance policies, Du Bois’ concept of color line becomes apparent. The color line is “the division of people according to racial classification” (Itzigsohn and Brown 2020: 19) and it was established due to the historical process of colonialism and social exclusion. As briefly mentioned above, Du Bois expanded on Marx’s work on capitalism by centering race, colonialism, and the global color line in his understanding of capitalism. Du Bois provides the perspective of the enslaved and colonial laborer showing how capitalism is based on colonialism and the exploitation of racialized labor (Itzigsohn and Brown 2020). As seen in Alexander’s work on mass incarceration, the history of colonialism and racial capitalism in the United States and abroad is still relevant in modern society and continues to oppress people of color. Schools have been a contentious site for social exclusion and the institution of education continues to reproduce racial and social inequalities. I argue that this history and Du Bois’ concept of the color line is crucial in understanding the issue and prevalence of school-based policing and zero tolerance policies in American public schools.

Du Bois states that America does not represent freedom and education, but it represents the “alliance with colonial imperialism and class dictatorship in order to enforce the denial of freedom to the colored people of the world” (Du Bois 1946: 65). This perspective is seen over the course of American history from slavery to emancipation to the disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws to mass incarceration. In the era of a supposedly colorblind society, Alexander (2010) argues that a new racial caste system emerges in the form of mass incarceration. Thus, she presents the new color line within modern society. Using Du Bois’ concept of the color line and Alexander’s framework of the new racial caste system, the policies of zero tolerance and SRO programs appear to be race-neutral, but their implementation impacts minority students. The history of school-based policing, which is provided in the previous section, aligns closely with Alexander’s analysis in The New Jim Crow where she outlines the inherently discriminatory policies of tough on crime era and the War on Drugs. Unfortunately, school-based policing emerged in educational institutions within this historical context.

SRO programs and school-based policing are constantly implemented in American schools despite the little to no evidence of their effectiveness and the consideration of the problems they pose in reproducing racial inequality in school discipline. In a study conducted by Chongmin Na and Denise Gottfredson, there was no evidence that SRO or other law enforcement officers contribute to school safety, as the increase of police presence did not result in a decrease in crime rates (Na and Gottfredson 2011). Another study that used the framework of deterrence and rational choice found only a modest deterrent effect of perceived risk on crime (Matsueda, Kreager, and Huizinga 2006). The authors of this study even noted that the empirical research did not show huge deterrent effects and referenced similar studies that also only showed small deterrent effects. These studies represent the existing research of the effectiveness of SRO programs on school campuses, showing little to no evidence that these policies create a safer school environment.

Despite the minimal evidence that SRO create a safer school environment, there is empirical research analyzing the problems SRO programs pose on school campuses, especially focusing on minority students. E. O. Turner and A. J. Beneke show how the effects of SRO programs appear to be racialized and argue that SROs illuminate the importance of racial capitalism in school discipline policies, such as school-based policing (Turner and Beneke 2019). In general, the research done on juvenile justice system show that minority students are overrepresented in rates of suspension, expulsion, and harsh treatment by school disciplinaries over white students (Skiba 2000). Black and Latinx boys are more likely to face jail time as the result of contact with law enforcement (Nolan 2011) and the presence of SROs on school campuses increases their exposure to police officers. This problem crosses gender lines too as Black girls are disproportionately punished and pushed out of schools due to zero-tolerance policies (Morris 2016).

Overall, the research shows that SRO programs fits into the larger movement toward criminalizing school discipline along with zero tolerance policies that reproduce racial inequality in schools. Jason Nance provides an original empirical analysis showing that “police officer’s regular presence at a school is predictive of greater odds that school officials refer students to law enforcement for committing various offenses including these lower-level offenses” (Nance 2015: 919). Other studies found that police officers in schools are related to schools recording “more crimes involving weapon and drugs and report a higher percentage of their non-serious violent crimes to law enforcement” (Na and Gottfredson 2013: 619). Fisher and Hennessy support these studies finding that “schools with SROs suspend and expel adolescents at higher rates” (Fisher and Hennessy 2015: 321). These studies show the negative impact that SROs have on students and school environments.

This research is supported by qualitative studies conducted by Nicole Bracy, Aaron Kupchik, and Loic Wacquant which found the presence of SROs affects the overall school climate. Bracy and Kupchik argue that having an officer on campus can “escalate disciplinary situation; increase the likelihood that students are arrested at school; redefine situations as criminal justice problems rather than social, psychological, or academic problems; introduce a criminal justice orientation to how administrators prevent and respond to problems; and socialize students to expect police presence in their lives” (Bracy and Kupchik 2010: 115). The authors found in this study that police presence in schools is unlikely to prevent school shootings and have a higher potential in oppressing racial/ethnic minority students. Wacquant references the “carceral atmosphere of schools” in the hyperghetto public schools that create prison-like environments that affects lower income and minority students to socialize them to their path of experiencing law enforcement and prison (Wacquant 2001: 108). This connects directly to Kupchik and Bracy’s finding of their qualitative study showing SROs’ negative effect on the overall school climate.

In the case of school-based policing and school shootings, there continues to be the increase of violent incidents on school campuses in the United States. Despite the lack of research of the effectiveness of SROs, their presence continues to increase and become normalized in public schools. Du Bois and Alexander provide the perspective and theoretical framework to understand the issue of school-based policing and how these policies seem to harm low-income and minority students while not even creating a safer school environment for students.

Durkheimian Perspective on School Shootings

School shootings have often been connected to the increase in SRO programs on school campuses, as well as the increase in security, metal detectors, and surveillance. The result of these policies then continues to blur the line between education and criminal justice institutions, which disproportionality affect minority students. I argue that Durkheim’s theory on social integration and cohesion is important in understanding the issue of school shooting and how to respond to this issue on school campuses.    

The analysis around the issue of school shootings often focus on the psychological perspective of the individual shooter. Analyzing school shootings through a sociological perspective brings a fuller understanding of the issue and can lead to better implementation of solutions regarding school safety. I argue that the school shooter falls into Durkheim’s category of egoistic suicide (Durkheim 1897). The increasing carceral atmosphere (Wacquant 2001) in American public high schools alienates more than integrates students into school. This leads to the loss of social cohesion in students that is the main characteristic of egoistic suicide. In Fox and Harding’s (2005) analysis on school shooting they also reference how students fall through the cracks due to the information loss caused by the division of labor within public schools. Fox and Harding then mention structural secrecy and claim that “since tasks are highly segregated in schools, that information is spread over multiple actors within the school” (Fox and Harding 2005: 73). This means that information that could detect a student is having issues and are unstable are lost because these signs are distributed amongst different educators, therefore the full picture is lost, and students fall through the cracks. Using Weber’s concept of bureaucracy, the bureaucratization of public high schools also contributes to the issue of school shooting and having students fall through the cracks. I am not arguing that all educators conduct their work impersonally, but I am noting the Weberian characteristics of bureaucracy, specifically specialization, division of tasks, and efficiency, which can lead to impersonality, in the institution of education and particularly in schools. The theories of both Weber and Durkheim provide an important framework to analyze the social issues that result in school shootings.

In 1999, the highly publicized Columbine school shooting led to the increased funding for SRO programs (Na and Gottfredson 2014). Using a Durkheimian perspective to view both the causes of school shooting and the response, it seems that the solution is also the cause of the problem. The solution to school shootings should not be increased security and SROs on school campuses that often alienates students (Kupnick 2010), but it should focus on the social integration of individuals in American public schools and encourage more support-oriented policies (Collier et. al 2018). Durkheim would argue that the lack of social integration and cohesion in America’s capitalistic and individualistic society has led to the emergence of the school shooter. Modern society has lost the institution of religion that played a crucial role of integration in traditional society. While some argue the function of religion in traditional society is replaced by friendship in modern society (Wallace and Hartley nd), I believe further research should be done especially analyzing friendships on school campuses to understand if they can function as the alternative to religion. The prevalence of school shootings suggests a lack of social cohesion; thus, it may infer that friendships are an unstable alternate.

The issue of school shootings and the response of the increase of school-based policing and security is where the concepts and frameworks of Durkheim, Weber, Du Bois, and Alexander intersect. Durkheim’s theory of social integration and cohesion combined with Weber’s concept of bureaucracy illustrate the problem in society and increasingly carceral public-school environments that foster school shooting while Du Bois and Alexander provide the implications of these policies and how it continues to harm minority students.

CONCLUSION

I began this research project not knowing the history of school-based policing and viewing police officer presence on school campuses as a normal attribute to schools. I have personally grown up with SROs and zero tolerance policies that were a result of the historical context of mass incarceration and the emergence of school shootings. Though police presence was normalized for me, I also began the research understanding the institutional and systemic racism imbedded in education institutions and I supported the BLM movement’s demands for school districts to dissolve their relationships with police departments. The recent protests allowed me to see the strange in the familiar and question why police officers are on school campuses in the first place. This research then allowed me to delve into the literature and classical sociological frameworks to breakdown the issues of school-based policing and school shootings putting this into the larger historical context.

To understand the issues of school-based policing, it is important to understand the historical context in which it emerged and grew in the United States. I frame this context within Du Bois’ concept of the color line and the ideas of Alexander and her view on mass incarceration as a racial caste system. The education institution lives within the broader political institutions and policies of American society. These policies and institutions are built to maintain social structure and continue to benefit from oppressing low-income and minority communities. In the age of colorblindness, the racial caste system hides within the veil of “race-neutral” policies that reproduce racial and social inequality in legitimate institutions, such as education and schools.

While conducting this research, I began to see the complexity of the issue facing school security and safety. There were two conflicting theories that guided the implementations of policies that were supposed to create safer learning environment for students. Looking beyond the theory and into the empirical research, I found more findings that would support the decrease in police officers on school campuses and advocate for more support-oriented policies instead of get-tough and zero tolerance policies. The growing carceral atmosphere of school campuses is frightening and I argue that this leads to more problems instead of solving school violence and crime.

Analyzing the overall school climate and the impact SROs have on this environment was interesting when trying to understand the issue of school shootings. The sociological perspective contextualizes this issue and focuses on students’ sense of integration and belonging within school. Using Durkheim’s theory of social integration and cohesion helped me understand how American society creates a social environment that results in school shootings. Weber’s concept of bureaucracy was valuable in this analysis too showing the division and specialization in schools result in the dispersal of information of students leading some students to fall through the cracks. Within this context, I learned how SROs and school-based policing acted as both the problem and solution to school shootings. I found studies that shows how SROs create an alienating environment rather than helping students integrate into schools. This alienation is the problem that results in an environment that can produce school shootings. Despite this, SROs and heightening security act as the solution to create safer school campuses that try to deter students from violence and crime.

Overall, the classical theoretical sociologists provide important concepts and frameworks to analyze modern issues in society, such as school-based policing and school shootings. In this work, I found that there needs to be more research done on this topic and policymakers need to analyze and view this research more thoroughly to implement policies that will not harm racial minorities and help schools become a safer environment for students. I would argue more funding and research should go towards support-oriented approaches to create a safer and more nurturing school environment that helps students integrate within schools. Schools must do a better job at creating social integration and cohesion for students and there needs to be a clear separation between schools and the juvenile justice system.

REFERENCES

Alexander, Michelle. 2020. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (10th Anniversary Edition). New York / London: The New Press

Barnum, Matt. 2020. “Do police keep schools safe? Fuel the school-to-prison pipeline? Here’s what the research says.” Chalkbeat. Retrieved November 5, 2020. (https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/23/21299743/police-schools-research)

Cohen, Lawrence E. and Marcus Felson. 1979. “Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach.” American Sociological Review, 44, 588-608.

Collier, Nicole L., Samantha J. Brown, Andrea N. Montes, George B. Pesta, Daniel P. Mears, and Sonja E. Siennick. 2018. “Navigating Get-Tough and Support-Oriented Philosophies for Improving School Safety: Insights from School Administrators and School Safety Staff.” American Journey of Criminal Justice 44. 705-726.

Cooper, Anna J. 2017. A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library. Retrieved November 1, 2020.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 2004. The Social Theory of W.e.b. Du Bois. edited by P. Zuckerman. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Retrieved November 13, 2020.

Durkheim, Emile. 1997 [1897]. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: The Free Press.

Everytown. 2020. “Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States.” Everytown: For Gun Safety. Retrieved on December 4, 2020. (https://maps.everytownresearch.org/gunfire-in-school/#ns).

Fisher, Benjamin W., and Deanna N. Devlin. 2020 “School Crime and the Patterns of Role of School Resource Officers: Evidence from a National Longitudinal Study.” Crime and Delinquency 66 (11). 1607-1629.

Fisher, Benjamin W. and Emily A. Hennessy. 2016. “School Resource Officers and Exclusionary Discipline in U.S. High Schools: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Adolescent Research Review 1(3):217–33.

Fox, Cybelle, and David J. Harding. 2005. “School Shootings as Organizational Deviance.” Sociology of Education 78 (1). 69-97.

French-Marcelin, Megan and Sarah Hinger. 2017. “Bullies in Blue” ACLU Foundation.

Hirschfield, Paul J. 2008. “Preparing for prison? The criminalization of school discipline in the USA. Theoretical Criminology, 12, 79-101.

Itzigsohn, José and Karida Brown. 2020. Sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line. New York University Press.

Kupchik, Aaron. 2010. Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear. New York, N.Y.: New York University Press.

Kupchik, Aaron and Torin Monahan. 2006. “The New American School: Preparation for post-industrial discipline.” British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27, 617-631.

Lindber, Maya. 2015. “False Sense of Security: Police make schools safer—right?” Teaching Tolerance.

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto.

Matsueda, Ross L., Derek A. Kreager and David Huizinga. 2006. “Deterring Delinquents: A Rational Choice Model of Theft and Violence.” American Sociological Review 71(1):95-122 (http://ccl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ccl.idm.oclc.org/docview/218802297?accountid=10141).

Morris, M. W. 2016. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. New York: New Press.

Morris, Monique W. 2012. Race, Gender, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Expanding our Discussion to Include Black Girls. African American Policy Forum.

Na, Chongmin, and Denise C. Gottfredson. 2013. “Police Officers in Schools: Effects on School Crime and the Processing of Offending Behaviors.” Justice Quarterly 30(4). 619.

National Center for Education Statistics. 2016. “School Survey on Crime and Safety” IES: NCES. Retrieved November 11, 2020 (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ssocs/tables/tab_my01_2016_all.asp)

National Center for Education Statistics. 2019. “Digest of Education Statistics” IES: NCES. Retrieved November 9, 2020. (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_203.60.asp).

Nance, Jason P. 2016. “Students, Police, and the School-To-Prison Pipeline.” Washington University Law Review 93(4). Retrieved November 15, 2020.

Nolan, K. 2011. Police in the Hallways: Discipline in an Urban High School. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

OXFAM America. 2020. Pandemic Profits Exposed. OXFAM Media Briefing. July 22, 2020.

Pigott, Christina, Ami E. Stearns, and David N. Khey. 2017. “School Resource Officers and the School to Prison Pipeline: Discovering Trends of Expulsions in Public Schools.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 43(1). 120.

Ritzer, George. 2013. “The Weberian Theory of Rationalization and the McDonaldization of Contemporary Society” pp. 1-17 in Illuminating Social Life: Classical and Contemporary Theory Revisited. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Skiba, Russell J. 2000 “Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence: An Analysis of School Disciplinary Practice. Policy Research Report.” Indiana University, Bloomington. Education Policy Center.

Snellens, Diana. (nd). “A Durkheimian analysis of the development of terrorism and the motives of suicide bombers”

Wacquant, Loic. 2001. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.” Punishment and Society, 3 (1). 95.

Wallace, Ruth and Shirley Hartley. (nd). “Religious Elements in Friendship” Zimring, Franklin E. and Gordon J. Hawkings. 1973.  Deterrence. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.