Criteria: One of the first research studies to examine the use and effects of multiple visibility security measures in schools
Key Takeaway: This research investigates the effects of visible security measures in schools – including security personnel, cameras, and metal detectors – and their potential to either enhance or reduce school safety. The study found that while these measures decreased property destruction, they paradoxically led to an increase in exposure to fights and drugs, potentially creating an unintended criminalizing culture. However, educators should be aware of the study’s limitations such as the difficulty in distinguishing between increased detection versus genuine increase in negative behaviors, and the disproportionate application of such measures in lower SES and racially/ethnically diverse schools.
Summation and Insights: This study on school security and safety examined whether three visibility school security measures (security personnel, cameras, and medical detectors) enhanced or detracted overall school safety. The use of visibility security measures is currently a highly debated topic in school safety, which tends to revolve around two positions. While some believe that adding school security measures promotes school safety, others are concerned that increasing school visibility measures may create a criminalizing culture and even increase the likelihood of criminal or aggressive behaviors. The researchers in this study concluded that adding school visibility security will increase criminal behavior among students and decrease overall school safety; however, there are some complicating variables to their study’s conclusion that must be accounted for and further evaluated by fellow researchers, school policymakers, and administrators.
All three of the researched security measures (security personnel, cameras, and metal detectors) are considered visibility security measures, as they promote surveillance as a form of criminal determent. The introduction of one or at times, even combinations of these three were tested against four measures: fighting in school, property destruction, exposure to drugs, and exposure to firearms. Data was gathered from the School Survey on Crime & Safety, a nationally representative, school administrator-reported survey. The study found that though school property destruction decreased, all three visibility security measures (or combinations thereof) contributed to an increase in exposure to both drugs and fighting. Exposure to drugs and fighting was measured via the number of administrator-reported suspensions for these offenses. The authors ultimately conclude that adding these security measures may have counterintuitive results for those wishing to promote school safety.
However, there were some limitations to this study that merit further consideration. One potential issue mentioned by the researchers is that the use of visibility security measures may increase our ability to detect such behaviors, rather than increase them. Though the authors do conclude that adding visibility security measures is unhelpful, they also explicitly state that “it was difficult to tell whether the results were due to increased detection and if these security measures changed or altered youth behavior.” A second potential issue with this study is that schools that had both increased security measures and higher incidents of violence (as denoted by greater exposure to, or more specifically, higher suspension rates for drugs and fighting) were predominantly of lower socioeconomic status and or had higher racial and ethnic minority make up. Here, the authors note that the data used in their study does have some complications because it was administrator reported. For example, it is increasingly documented that schools with higher minoritized populations often face problems that may have more to do with societal prejudice than with student behavioral problems, such as disproportionate suspension rates by administrators.
The study draws our attention to the fact that many schools, including those comprised of students of lower SES status and minoritized populations, need our further attention and care when it comes to creating a sense of safety at school. The study concludes that adding greater visible security measures may have a counterintuitive and even negative effect on student safety. This conclusion is well worth considering, as are some of the complications (empirical issues of detection vs. validly measured increases, and issues regarding data and minoritized populations) that arose alongside this finding.
Resource: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12103-017-9409-3
Year: 2017
Author: Emily E. Tanner-Smith, Benjamin W. Fisher, Lynn A. Addington, & Joseph H. Gardella
Primary Author: Emily Tanner-Smith, https://education.uoregon.edu/directory/cpsy/all/etanners