<p>School resource officer programs, characterized as a major crime control model and violence prevention program have earned the designation as an effective prevention strategy to mitigate against student misconduct and violations of the law. This study explored school resource officers? perceptions of how arrests decisions influenced order within middle and high schools. The purpose of the study was to determine if a relationship existed between factors, circumstances, and the arrest decisions in middle and high schools. It was assumed the officers? decision to arrest or not arrest were dependent upon factors and circumstances that were interconnected to the functionality of maintaining social order within the school setting. The structural-functionalism theory offered a comprehensive approach to explore the relationship between the social structure of schools, functions of school resource officers and the impact of their arrests decisions in creating balance and stability in the school environment. For this study, the dependent variable was the arrest decisions of school resource officers and the independent variables were factors, circumstances and years of experience. The study hypothesized a correlation between the dependent variable (arrests decisions) and the independent variables, which were collapsed into three facets - factors, circumstances and years of experience. Although, it was presumed years of experience would influence arrests decisions, logistic regression analysis revealed it did not influence the arrest decision as much as the facet factors. The study further revealed females were more likely to arrest than males and more students were arrested at the high school level than at the middle school level. Academic achievement and criminal records were considered at the middle school level with little consideration in high school.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3742829 |
| Date | 12 January 2016 |
| Creators | Hall, Marquenta Sands |
| Publisher | Capella University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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