‘Softening’ school resource officers: the extension of police presence in schools in an era of Black Lives Matter, school shootings, and rising inequality

Abstract

This study examines how and why a US city that is known nationally for its political progressivism continuously reaffirm its decision to maintain and expand the School Resource Officers (SRO) program in its high schools. By examining local discourses within a racial capitalism framework, we show that elements of racial neoliberalism re-emerge within a neoliberal therapeutic discourse that dominated decision-making processes and countered challenges to SROs in schools. This discourse argued that individual officers benefitted low-income students of color by providing care and challenging school racism. Despite research evidence and a counter discourse, which argued that SROs enacted harm and racism against low-income students of color, especially Black students, and should be removed from schools, SROs came to be an ‘easy’ fix to racial neoliberalism in the school district and city and contributed to the continuation and extension of the school to prison nexus.