The prevalence of school police departments has more than doubled over the past two decades to a point where school district police departments account for nearly 20% of all sworn school resource officers in the country. What happened in Uvalde should have been a tipping point to prove further that police, including school police departments, do not keep students safe. Advancement Project’s A Cop is A Cop report is a comprehensive guide outlining why the increasing trend of school police departments only creates violence, not safety.
our new brief, 'A Cop is A Cop: the rise of school district police departments and why they must be dismantled,' documents the alarming, rapid growth of school districts setting up their own police forces -- disproportionately policing Black and Latine students. These are not "special" police. Instead of safety, these school district police departments embed surveillance, harm, and violence into schools, criminalizing and assaulting students in these districts. LA and Oakland organizers are leading the way in reversing this trend.
