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Arrest Decision Making by School Resource Officers

Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice

Published online on

Abstract

Over the past two decades, school resource officers (SROs) have become an increasingly common fixture on the American educational landscape. Despite their prominence in schools, significant investigation into their arrest-making behavior has not occurred. This article uses responses to a statewide survey of SROs in Delaware to explore SRO arrest decision making. Guided by Black’s general theory of arrest, it analyzes the effect of the school context on SROs’ arrest decisions. The SROs’ survey responses indicate that the factors highlighted by Black as influential to arrest decisions remain prominent in SRO arrest decision making, but the school context influences their arrest decisions in a variety of critical ways.