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A 2015 viral video showed an armed officer in South Carolina bodyslamming a teenage girl. (Photo: Screenshot)
Getting Real About School Safety
Armed adults don’t make kids safer. They put them at greater risk.
Mar 07, 2018
Can we get real about school safety?
Since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, there have been at least 239 school shootings in the United States. 438 people were shot and injured in these shootings, and 138 people were killed.
On Valentine's Day of this year, 14 high school students and three faculty members at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida were gunned down in the hallways and classrooms.
The survivors are demanding that lawmakers take action to get guns out of schools so this carnage might stop.
The National Rifle Association, the Trump administration, and many conservative lawmakers are answering these demands for fewer guns by calling for... even more guns in schools. Specifically, they want more armed guards, and even armed teachers.
Is that really the answer?
Let's see what the facts tell us: Americans already own about half of all guns in the world, and suffer by far the most gun homicides among developed countries. Breaking it down further, states with more guns have more gun deaths.
All told, we're home to 5 percent of the world's population but 31 percent of the world's mass shooters.
Clearly, guns aren't the answer. But even beyond the weapons, putting more cops in schools has its own risks.
Our public schools already have legions of armed law enforcement officers, euphemistically called School Resource Officers (SROs), roaming the hallways. As of 2014, at least 30 percent of our public schools had at least one SRO.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had one. And it had two other trained, armed law enforcement officers on the grounds as the massacre was occurring. They neither deterred nor stopped the shooter.
Nationally, we average about five school shootings per month. So while our schools are already teeming with SROs, there's no evidence that this has kept our students safer.
There's plenty of evidence, however, that the presence of SROs hurts our students -- especially back, Latino, indigenous, LGBTQ, disabled, and low-income students.
The presence of cops in schools has markedly increased the number of these kids who end up in the juvenile justice system -- including for minor offenses like graffiti and subjective, childish behavior like "disorderly conduct" and "disobedience."
As of 2014, 43 states and the District of Columbia arrested black students at school at disproportionately high rates. And black students were far more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to attend schools that employ SROs.
This is no small matter. These types of arrests, detentions, and referrals increase the likelihood that children will have further encounters with the criminal legal system, drop out of school, and suffer unemployment later on.
In other words, the presence of armed officers in schools doesn't protect our kids. It puts them at risk.
A better way forward for school safety is to invest in training teachers in social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) to spot and address trauma and stress -- to see and teach the whole child. And to invest in restorative justice practices that nurture kids while holding them accountable, to help kids move on from small infractions before things escalate.
Our gun-soaked society is a critical piece of the problem, and strong gun control laws can begin to address that. But another critical piece of the problem is a punitive society that targets vulnerable children for non-violent offenses.
Instead of arming schools -- which benefits only the NRA and lawmakers who've been bought by them -- what our education system needs is resources to support the healthy development of all students.
Then we're getting real about school safety.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Karen Dolan
Karen Dolan is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and directs the Criminalization of Poverty project there. She is author of "The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty."
Can we get real about school safety?
Since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, there have been at least 239 school shootings in the United States. 438 people were shot and injured in these shootings, and 138 people were killed.
On Valentine's Day of this year, 14 high school students and three faculty members at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida were gunned down in the hallways and classrooms.
The survivors are demanding that lawmakers take action to get guns out of schools so this carnage might stop.
The National Rifle Association, the Trump administration, and many conservative lawmakers are answering these demands for fewer guns by calling for... even more guns in schools. Specifically, they want more armed guards, and even armed teachers.
Is that really the answer?
Let's see what the facts tell us: Americans already own about half of all guns in the world, and suffer by far the most gun homicides among developed countries. Breaking it down further, states with more guns have more gun deaths.
All told, we're home to 5 percent of the world's population but 31 percent of the world's mass shooters.
Clearly, guns aren't the answer. But even beyond the weapons, putting more cops in schools has its own risks.
Our public schools already have legions of armed law enforcement officers, euphemistically called School Resource Officers (SROs), roaming the hallways. As of 2014, at least 30 percent of our public schools had at least one SRO.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had one. And it had two other trained, armed law enforcement officers on the grounds as the massacre was occurring. They neither deterred nor stopped the shooter.
Nationally, we average about five school shootings per month. So while our schools are already teeming with SROs, there's no evidence that this has kept our students safer.
There's plenty of evidence, however, that the presence of SROs hurts our students -- especially back, Latino, indigenous, LGBTQ, disabled, and low-income students.
The presence of cops in schools has markedly increased the number of these kids who end up in the juvenile justice system -- including for minor offenses like graffiti and subjective, childish behavior like "disorderly conduct" and "disobedience."
As of 2014, 43 states and the District of Columbia arrested black students at school at disproportionately high rates. And black students were far more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to attend schools that employ SROs.
This is no small matter. These types of arrests, detentions, and referrals increase the likelihood that children will have further encounters with the criminal legal system, drop out of school, and suffer unemployment later on.
In other words, the presence of armed officers in schools doesn't protect our kids. It puts them at risk.
A better way forward for school safety is to invest in training teachers in social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) to spot and address trauma and stress -- to see and teach the whole child. And to invest in restorative justice practices that nurture kids while holding them accountable, to help kids move on from small infractions before things escalate.
Our gun-soaked society is a critical piece of the problem, and strong gun control laws can begin to address that. But another critical piece of the problem is a punitive society that targets vulnerable children for non-violent offenses.
Instead of arming schools -- which benefits only the NRA and lawmakers who've been bought by them -- what our education system needs is resources to support the healthy development of all students.
Then we're getting real about school safety.
Karen Dolan
Karen Dolan is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and directs the Criminalization of Poverty project there. She is author of "The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty."
Can we get real about school safety?
Since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, there have been at least 239 school shootings in the United States. 438 people were shot and injured in these shootings, and 138 people were killed.
On Valentine's Day of this year, 14 high school students and three faculty members at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida were gunned down in the hallways and classrooms.
The survivors are demanding that lawmakers take action to get guns out of schools so this carnage might stop.
The National Rifle Association, the Trump administration, and many conservative lawmakers are answering these demands for fewer guns by calling for... even more guns in schools. Specifically, they want more armed guards, and even armed teachers.
Is that really the answer?
Let's see what the facts tell us: Americans already own about half of all guns in the world, and suffer by far the most gun homicides among developed countries. Breaking it down further, states with more guns have more gun deaths.
All told, we're home to 5 percent of the world's population but 31 percent of the world's mass shooters.
Clearly, guns aren't the answer. But even beyond the weapons, putting more cops in schools has its own risks.
Our public schools already have legions of armed law enforcement officers, euphemistically called School Resource Officers (SROs), roaming the hallways. As of 2014, at least 30 percent of our public schools had at least one SRO.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had one. And it had two other trained, armed law enforcement officers on the grounds as the massacre was occurring. They neither deterred nor stopped the shooter.
Nationally, we average about five school shootings per month. So while our schools are already teeming with SROs, there's no evidence that this has kept our students safer.
There's plenty of evidence, however, that the presence of SROs hurts our students -- especially back, Latino, indigenous, LGBTQ, disabled, and low-income students.
The presence of cops in schools has markedly increased the number of these kids who end up in the juvenile justice system -- including for minor offenses like graffiti and subjective, childish behavior like "disorderly conduct" and "disobedience."
As of 2014, 43 states and the District of Columbia arrested black students at school at disproportionately high rates. And black students were far more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to attend schools that employ SROs.
This is no small matter. These types of arrests, detentions, and referrals increase the likelihood that children will have further encounters with the criminal legal system, drop out of school, and suffer unemployment later on.
In other words, the presence of armed officers in schools doesn't protect our kids. It puts them at risk.
A better way forward for school safety is to invest in training teachers in social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) to spot and address trauma and stress -- to see and teach the whole child. And to invest in restorative justice practices that nurture kids while holding them accountable, to help kids move on from small infractions before things escalate.
Our gun-soaked society is a critical piece of the problem, and strong gun control laws can begin to address that. But another critical piece of the problem is a punitive society that targets vulnerable children for non-violent offenses.
Instead of arming schools -- which benefits only the NRA and lawmakers who've been bought by them -- what our education system needs is resources to support the healthy development of all students.
Then we're getting real about school safety.
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