Associate Prof. Austin: ‘Police in schools does not make them safer’

Associate Prof. Andrew Austin (Sociology & Chair of Democracy and Justice Studies) argues that adding more armed officers to schools is not the way out of gun violence. In his column, “Police in the schools does not make them safer” in the Green Bay Press Gazette, Austin explains that the increase of armed police presence at schools over the years has not eliminated school shootings, but rather contributed to profiling of minority students on campuses. “Once embedded in schools, the law enforcement gaze is turned on the children, bringing biases from the outside inside the building,” he says. Austin also points out, that school shooting drills reinforce student fear, and allow dangerous individuals to plan around it.