Reply to SRO lite coming back to MCPS as "Community Engagement Officer " CEOs

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Reply to "SRO lite coming back to MCPS as "Community Engagement Officer " CEOs"

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[quote=Anonymous]As someone who has been involved in this process, I think MCPS was doing it correctly from the beginning, last year.   They had a truly thoughtful and in-depth examination of the pros and the cons of the SRO program.  They had all stakeholders at the table, including police.  Elrich and the Council have excluded police from the coproduction of public safety, which was extremely shortsighted.  Both in the task force to reimagine public safety (Elrich) and the policing advisory commission (council).

And I think if MCPS had been allowed to make the decision last year, we would have seen something much more similar to CEO 2.0

Elrich unilaterally pulled SROs out and MCPS had to deal with the cards they were dealt.  They have some great approaches to the student support side, wrap around services, etc., all of which are necessary.  But police are necessary too.

Meta-analyses of SRO programs show that overall, they reduce violence in schools but increase arrests.   But those analyses and other studies rarely take the guiding MOU into account.  Montgomery County has long had an MOU that delineates between school discipline and criminal conduct.  It is light years ahead of many other programs around the nation and has been used as a model to develop best practice training across the nation.

For example, in the year ending 2020, Montgomery County had 70 school arrests, while Anne Arundel County, half our size, had over 600.   Wicomico County, which has 15,000 students total, had 240 arrests.

Regardless of our low arrest rate, the conversation about school safety should have included racial disparities in victimization in the schools.    Black and brown kids are more likely to be assaulted than white kids.  And for kids ages 12-18, school is actually a more dangerous place than out in the community.  It doesn't make sense to ban police from those areas when we know that combining wrap around social services with LEO presence is the number one best violence reduction practice out there.   It cannot be one or the other in isolation.   It needs to be both.  And now, the County is moving toward that.   Keep it transparent.  Tell me about the oversight and accountability mechanisms.  Report on it annually.   But do the right thing and provide the best resources we have to keep kids safe.  They can't thrive if they aren't safe.  Public safety is foundational to the welfare of our entire community.  We are smart enough to do it right and do it fairly.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/iscs20.pdf

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