Beyond School Police Officers: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Exposure to a Fuller Range of School Security Personnel

Using data from the 2017–2018 and 2020–2021 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), we document disparities in exposure to security personnel across US high schools and geographic levels. We distinguish between law enforcement officers (LEOs) and school security guards (SSGs) to capture variation in how security roles are deployed. Results show that Black and Hispanic students experience greater exposure to security personnel than White students. The disparity mainly arises from differences in exposure to SSGs and district and metropolitan variation, although disparities are present across all geographic scales and for LEOs. Our findings suggest that reform should not only focus on officer presence within schools but also on structural inequalities in security personnel deployment by type and across districts and regions.