Argumentative Essay On School Resource Officers

Words: 632
Pages: 3

As more school shootings occur in America, parents now wonder if their children are safe at school. To combat the result of the mass shootings, the government gave grants to police departments to increase the number of resource officers in schools. There are now “approximately 19,000 school resource officers in schools across the United States…” (U.S. Department of Justice) moreover, they can be found in “35 percent of school across America.” (Spencer C. Weiler and Martha Cray, 2011) These officers’ job is to create a safe, positive learning environment for students. However, school resource officers are causing more problems than helping them disappear. For example, a high school girl was torn from her chair, body slammed into the tiles and dragged on the ground for not following classroom rules. (The Atlantic) These “occasions” happen to many times with the same formatting. A student getting injured for zero reasons and the worst-case scenario for the officer is getting fired. School resource officers should not be in school because they lack training on how to confront juveniles, they create a fearful environment and causes dropouts.
Most school resource officers lack the experience to deal with kids. The Atlantic states that
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SROs are tightening security to prevent school violence to create a safe place for the students. However, many are showing aggressive behavior to “suspicious” students, making them fearful. The survey revealed that in one school in Palm Beach County that out of “35 percent said they felt protected, while 65 percent said that they felt “something other than protected, including intimidated and harassed.” Intimidated students would be scared to tell officers when something bad happened at school or even at home. Aggressive, irrational school officers can also further widen the trust gap between youth and officers in schools and