“Relationship-building” and the Normalization of Police in Schools

The Emergence of School Resource Officer Programs in Canada

Abstract

The earliest School Resource Officer Programs in Canada date back to the 1970s. This study examines how police officers, teachers, school administrators, students, and journalists use a discourse of relationship-building between police and youth to frame School Resource Officers (SROs): who they are, the work they do, their roles in students’ lives, and their value to the school community. Analyzing this discourse during the emergence of SRO Programs in Edmonton and Calgary, the study illustrates how relationship-building positions SROs positively within the school community, helping normalize police presence in schools. The findings help inform critical understanding of the contemporary persistence of the relationship-building discourse as justification for SRO programs, which often eclipses consideration of program ineffectiveness and harmful effects. Overall, the relationship-building discourse remains an institutional ruse that elides the key question: what do police in schools actually do to support the education of youth and to create equitable schools?