Wagner And Winick On The Law

There are more than 43,000 SROs or school-based police officers, and an additional 39,000 security guards, working in our country’s 84,000 public schools: Only 12 states have laws that specify training requirements for school security staff who are assigned or deployed to schools. Few of these staff have any training in education, child and adolescent psychology, cultural sensitivity and understanding, and student disabilities and mental health. Police academies spend 1% or less of their total training hours on juvenile justice issues. Most of the training in these areas are voluntary. Most of the security officers who work in schools come from community-based law enforcement backgrounds, their training, perspectives, and interactions relate more to criminals than to growing and maturing students.Should there be special training required for police officers who are assigned to schools?