Mar 3, 2020, 12:38 PM
(From The 74 Million) While gun control has been a hot topic during the 2020 Democratic primary, the issue of police presence in K-12 schools has been largely unmentioned by the Democratic front runners. Now, some critics are calling for Joe Biden to speak out on his record on campus officers — particularly, his role in creating the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which distributed billions of dollars in federal money to hire thousands of police officers, including in schools. While mass school shootings have led to a surge in campus police over the past few decades, evidence that such practices curb campus violence remains startlingly thin. Meanwhile, a growing body of research suggests their rapidly growing numbers have been associated with an percent increase in disciplinary rates among middle school students, with the largest increases among black children, and a percent drop in high school graduation rates.
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