School Officers Have a Track Record of Solving Sexual Misconduct Crimes

F. Chris Curran

Security, Americas

Trust is key for school resource officers to be effective, research shows.

The presence of law enforcement in schools – better known as school resource officers – has become increasingly common. These officers, who have full law enforcement powers, are supposed to keep students safe. Earlier this year, however, a former Michigan school resource officer – Matthew Priebe – was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail for doing just the opposite.

Instead of protecting students from threats, Officer Priebe had been sexually preying on female students, using his power as a school police officer to engage in inappropriate and nonconsensual sexual acts with students.

This latest headline is not a singular event. Within the past year, several other school resource officers have been arrested or convicted of sexual misconduct with students.

The good news is this kind of sexual misconduct appears to be relatively rare.

Still, with police officers now present in about half of schools nationwide, incidents like these raise a number of questions. Just how common are cases of sexual misconduct by school resource officers? And what can be done to prevent incidents in the future?

As an educational researcher who studies school resource officers and school safety, here are my observations regarding these pressing questions.

Prevalence of the problem