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Police Ambassadors: Student-Police Interactions in School and Legal Socialization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Aaron Kupchik ,
F. Chris Curran ,
Benjamin W. Fisher  and
Samantha L. Viano
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Abstract

The recent influx of police officers into US public schools has reshaped the context and frequency of children's interactions with police. Yet we know little about how the presence of these officers in schools impacts the legal socialization of students, and whether youth of color might be affected or socialized in different ways than white youth. In this study, we analyze data from interviews with school police officers as well as focus group data from school staff, parents, and students that shed light on how school police interact with youth. In particular, school police officers discussed their desire to build relationships with students that instill trust in police among students. Officers discussed their efforts to teach students that police should be trusted and relied on, and that negative views of policing and involvement with the justice system are the result of a negative news media and individual citizens' criminality, respectively. Importantly, officers discussed how they devote particular attention to imparting these lessons on youth of color and others who may see police in a negative light. We consider how these outreach efforts, what we call acting as police ambassadors, might have different impacts on youth of color compared to white youth, given existing racial disparities in interactions with police.

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Law & Society Review , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 391 - 422
Copyright
© 2020 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

We would like to thank Emily Hayden and John Skinner for valuable research assistance as well as Susan Sterett for useful feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript. This project was supported by Award No. 2016-CK-BX-0020, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.

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