A Boring Dystopia

Schools in the US have officers specifically assigned to the school. Like the officer’s full time job is to patrol the halls. They’re called School Resource Officers, and they are a large part of the school-to-prison pipeline, as their entire job is focused on getting kids out of regular school and into the prison system. Kids get arrested for things that could be (and previously were) handled by school discipline instead. But since school admins don’t want to deal with it, (because it would require actually making decisions on a case-by-case basis), it’s easier for them to just default to having a kid carted off to juvie by the SRO. And SROs come with all of the same problems and trappings as regular officers; massive racial disparities, being trained for violent escalation as the default, etc…

The stats for SROs are actually pretty staggering. The idea started in the 1950’s, but didn’t really become widespread until the late 90’s when the government started funding specific SRO grants and initiatives, to make them more easily accessible to schools. Columbine (and the subsequent rise in school shootings throughout the 2000’s) poured more fuel on the fire. By 2010, around 45% of middle and high schools in America had SROs. By 2020, that number was nearly 70%.

Schools that invest heavily into SRO programs see a marked increase in arrests (and subsequent drop-outs as kids inevitably end up in the prison system) before graduation. But because no public figure wants to look like they’re soft on crime, politicians keep pushing SRO programs onto school admins. Because more arrests makes it look like they’re cracking down on crime. When in reality, the SRO’s primary role is turning minor problems and disagreements into life-ruining ones.