Why and When Do School Resource Officers Engage in School Discipline? The Role of Context in Shaping Disciplinary Involvement

The use of law enforcement in schools raises concerns about impacts on school discipline. Drawing on a large-scale qualitative study of approximately fifty schools across two school districts, this study explores school resource officers’ (SROs’) involvement in school discipline and how it is shaped by their context. We use interview, focus group, and observation data from nearly 200 participants to document variability in the way SROs...