NCJ Number
186915
Date Published
March 2000
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This report presents findings from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services' (DCJS) ongoing evaluation of local School Resource Officer (SRO) programs.
Abstract
The primary evaluation goals were to obtain information on the extent and nature of school-based crime, the implementation and operation of local SRO programs, and the activities SROs undertake to fulfill their designated roles. It was also designed to obtain benchmark data for use in future evaluations. All of the SRO programs evaluated received grants of Federal monies from DCJS or the Office of the Governor. The research focused on SRO activity between January and July 1999, a period in which 55 DCJS-monitored grants supported 58 SROs in 41 localities. Evaluation data were obtained from 3,244 Student Incident Reports (SIRs), a survey of 2,067 school staff, a survey of 11,864 middle-school and high-school students, and 104 SRO Quarterly Activities Reports. Findings from the SIR data show that 48 percent of all SIR-reported incidents were crimes against persons; 18 percent were property crimes; 10 percent were drug related; and 2 percent were gang related. The incidents occurred primarily outside the school building (31 percent), in classrooms (24 percent), and in school corridors (19 percent). Findings from the student and school staff survey data show that both students and school staff felt safe while at school; 78 percent of the students and 85 percent of the staff reported feeling either "somewhat" or "very" safe at school. The SRO Quarterly Activity Reports provided substantial evidence that SROs are pursuing the goals and objectives associated with their designated roles. They are participating in school security assessments, applying environmental design principles to reduce the probability of crime, developing school crime prevention policies, instructing legal education classes, intervening in conflicts before they involve law violations, increasing the level of student supervision, counseling troubled students, developing crime information networks, and involving students and staff in crime prevention activities. Extensive charts and tables of evaluation findings