School-Based Police Officers: What Can the UK Learn from the USA?

Abstract

This article is based on the author's experience as Britain's first school-based police officer and his subsequent experience of policing schools in the USA. It outlines the current practices of the Metropolitan Police Service in its quest to introduce the concept of placing police officers on a full-time basis in schools. This is in response to the alarming number of young people becoming involved in crime and is part of the package of measures being taken forward by the Prime Minister's Street Crime Action Team (Home Office, 2003) to combat street robberies and related crime. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of such a scheme as experienced by the author and the strategies used to address the problems of youth violence and compares and contrasts these findings with those of his experiences in several schools in the US over a five-month period as an observational evaluator. The article also endeavours to look at the different ways in which the work of the schools officer is perceived in the two countries and the support structure which is available in each. The challenges which need to be met in order to form partnerships are outlined. Such efforts can collectively tackle the issue of juvenile delinquency through a common vision. In addition the need for a comprehensive training manual to be developed and implemented to assist these processes is discussed. The paper concludes by considering the extent to which, by combining the good practice from the US with those successful elements of the UK model, school police partnerships can moveorward and embrace the notion of school-based police officers in a positive light.