Police Officers Placed in High Schools as Part of Community Policing (Essay Sample)

The Use of Police Officers Placed in High Schools as Part of “Community Policing
School safety requires extensive cooperation among stakeholders in the school community, including parents, students, educators, law enforcement agencies, faith-based institutions and the business organizations (Atkinson, 2002). Sustainable collaborative approaches to community policing such as information sharing as well as comprehensive approaches to addressing school safety through prevention and prompt response to suspected criminal violations in schools are essential to guarantying the safety of students. In the United States and Canada, the deployment of the police in schools as active-duty resource officers, has particularly enhanced the enforcement of drug prevention initiatives, zero tolerance policies and anti-terrorism vigilance in schools (Weisburd, D., et al, 2018). The modern era of widespread juvenile crimes coupled with sporadic instances of domestic terror in schools justifies the placement of police officers in high schools as part of community policing to ensure safety of students.
In the past century, police across various jurisdictions have been involved with schools in diverse ways, a relationship mostly dictated by the evolving security concerns of the schools and their corresponding communities. In the past, police involvement in high schools was limited to picking up truant or delinquent learners, prevention of child abuse and enforcing general traffic or bicycle safety (Weisburd et al, 2018). However, security and safety challenges experienced in schools since the 1960s necessitated a more formalized and closer collaboration between the police and local high schools. In particular, the police have been called upon to respond to increased instances of youth offending, including frequent incidences of school-based violence. Besides, the policymakers in the United States and Canada view the deployment of police officers to high schools as a practical deterrence against the more devastating instances of bullying, truancy, sporadic school fights, and drug abuse (Weisburd, D., et al, 2018). An increasingly violent school environment invites the involvement of the police, rather than relying entirely on school administrators to guarantee the safety of learners as the most appropriate response.