This report presents statistics about school resource officers, based on data from the first-time BJS Survey of Law Enforcement Personnel in Schools (SLEPS) agency survey, which was developed as a part of the Department of Justice Comprehensive School Safety Initiative. SLEPS was designed to address gaps in national statistics on the characteristics of law enforcement agencies employing school resource officers and the characteristics and functions of the officers. The report provides data on the agencies that employ school resource officers and demographics of the officers. It also describes the policies related to school resource officers, including law enforcement, mentoring, and teaching duties performed; hiring processes; and required training.
Highlights:
- About 5,500 law enforcement agencies employed a total of 24,900 sworn SROs in 2019.
- About 1 in 5 sworn SROs were female, and about 1 in 6 sworn SROs were black.
- About 9 in 10 agencies required SROs to inform school executive staff of an arrest of a student (91%) or staff member (89%) during school hours.
- Half of all agencies allowed SROs to interview students without parental permission.