Decriminalizing or reassembling schools? Implications of removing police from schools for racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice system contact

ABSTRACT Calls to remove school-based law enforcement (SBLE) have grown in tandem with widespread SBLE presence. Central to these calls are issues of equity, with the hope that removing SBLE will reduce racial/ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. However, little research has examined the extent to which removing SBLE shapes outcomes related to criminal justice system contact or attendant disparities for students of color. This study examines the impact of removing SBLE on racial/ethnic disparities in criminal justice system contact. We draw on the Civil Rights Data Collection, a biennial census of U.S. public schools, to construct a two-wave longitudinal dataset and identify schools that removed or did not remove SBLE. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we compared changes in two measures of criminal justice system contact—arrests and referrals to law enforcement—in schools that removed SBLE to changes in schools that did not. Removing police was largely unrelated to changes in arrest and referral rates, with increases for some racial/ethnic groups. Findings were mostly consistent, regardless of school racial/ethnic composition. These results suggest schools must consider strategies beyond simply removing police to dismantle systems of surveillance that perpetuate racial/ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system.