For years, I’ve argued that putting more armed officers in schools is not the magic solution many people think it is. After school shootings, especially high-profile ones, politicians inevitably start calling for more school resource officers, more security, and more police presence. The idea sounds simple enough. If there are more cops in schools, surely schools will be safer.
The problem is that reality keeps getting in the way of that argument.
After the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered, state lawmakers responded in the most predictable way possible. Rather than addressing how an 18-year-old was able to get his hands on the weapons used in the attack, Texas dramatically expanded police presence in schools.
The state now spends more than $1.3 billion a year on school security, up from roughly $900 million before the new requirements were put in place. Texas schools now employ or contract with approximately 11,000 officers trained to work in schools. That’s more police officers than at least two dozen states have in total.
Imagine what even a fraction of that money could do if it were spent on teachers, counselors, psychologists, special education programs, tutoring, after-school activities, or mental health services. Instead, Texas decided the answer was more badges and guns. And now we’re starting to see the results.
A recent New York Times investigation found more than 2,600 use-of-force incidents involving school police between 2022 and 2025, despite reporters only having access to a portion of the available records.
Students were pepper-sprayed, tackled, Tasered, handcuffed, slammed into walls, and thrown to the ground. One officer hogtied a 10-year-old child with a behavioral disorder. Another officer repeatedly shocked a teenager with a Taser after he tried to retrieve his house keys before leaving campus. A six-year-old child was handcuffed during a tantrum.
Many of these incidents didn’t involve weapons or serious violence. Some started over vaping. Others stemmed from schoolyard fights, dress code violations, talking back to teachers, or refusing to follow instructions quickly enough. Situations that once would have resulted in a trip to the principal’s office instead became police matters.
This outcome was easily predictable.
Cops are not trained to be counselors or social workers. They are not trained to help traumatized children process emotions or resolve conflicts. Police are trained to establish control, apprehend suspects, and subdue people they view as noncompliant. That training may be necessary in certain law enforcement situations, but it becomes a serious problem when the people being subdued are middle school students.
While the investigation did not provide comprehensive demographic data for every incident, many of the students shown in the videos and highlighted in the reporting appeared to be students of color, which shouldn’t be surprising.
Decades of research on school discipline and policing have repeatedly shown that minority students are more likely to be suspended, arrested, and subjected to harsher discipline than their white peers.
Then we wonder why some of these kids become alienated from school and authority figures.
How exactly do we expect these kids not to end up in the criminal justice system when we’re treating them like criminals before they’re even old enough to drive? If a student learns from an early age that every mistake, every emotional outburst, and every disciplinary issue might result in being handcuffed and arrested, we’re teaching them that they are suspects first and students second.
Meanwhile, the original justification for flooding schools with police remains as weak as ever. The presence of thousands of additional officers has not eliminated school shootings. It has not prevented students from getting their hands on guns. It has not stopped these guns from making their way onto campus. Earlier this year, a student in the San Antonio area shot a teacher before taking his own life despite all the security measures that were supposedly put in place after Uvalde.
As I’ve said before, the answer to gun violence in schools isn’t more guns, since that would be like trying to cure cancer with more cancer.
Four years after Uvalde, politicians are still treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. They continue to spend billions on police while refusing to address how students get access to firearms in the first place.
If Uvalde taught us anything, it should have been that simply surrounding schools with more armed officers does not make children safer. What Texas appears to have accomplished instead is creating a system where thousands of students are exposed to police force for behavior that used to be handled by educators.
That’s not school safety. It’s just a different form of violence being brought into the classroom.
(Sources)
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