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Ensuring School Safety
Local law enforcement agencies have been asked to play an increasingly
prominent role in ensuring school safety. Youth violence, gangs, and drugs are
important issues not only for federal and local policy makers, but for school
administrators, parents, and students as well. The community policing philosophy
has become a critical element to making schools safer in the 21st Century. State
and local law enforcement agencies are bringing community policing to schools:
- Hiring school resource officers (SROs) who utilize a community oriented
policing philosophy.
- Engaging in student training programs proven to reduce violence and drug
use and reinforce student conflict resolution skills.
- Developing early warning systems that can alert school administrators and
SROs to potentially problematic students and geographic areas within
schools.
- Using problem solving skills to develop innovative solutions to local
school problems, including gangs, drugs, loitering, disorderly conduct,
fights, larceny, and vandalism.
- Collecting and analyzing data using a wide variety of traditional and
non-traditional data sources (such as suspensions, dropout rates, calls for
service, GPA, attendance, and parent and counselor information) to study
school safety problems.
- Developing partnerships with parents, local businesses, school bus
drivers, school officials, and students to develop outcome-based solutions
to school safety problems.
- Mentoring students and exposing them to positive role models.
As of May 2002, COPS has played an instrumental role in supplying more than
2,300 law enforcement agencies with over 4,900 School Resource Officers through
its popular COPS in Schools (CIS) program. This program
is designed to assist law enforcement agencies in hiring new, additional SROs to
engage in community policing in and around primary and secondary schools. This
program provides an incentive for law enforcement agencies to build
collaborative partnerships with the school community and to use community
policing to combat school violence. These officers have helped to improve school
safety and student development around the country.
In addition, through the School Based Partnership
Program (SBP) the COPS Office has provided funding specifically to develop
problem-solving partnerships between local police, schools, and community-based
organizations. These partnerships focus on developing cooperative solutions to
specific crime problems through the use of the SARA problem-solving model.
The COPS Office, along with other U.S. Department of Justice components,
recognizes the challenges local law enforcement and schools face when
confronting school safety issues. The federal government is therefore involved
in providing Guides & Reports and
Training & Technical Assistance to community members, school officials, and local law enforcement
that are interested in increasing school safety. The COPS Office has also
provided Links to Other Resources to assist in this important effort.
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