School resource officer data shows more than 2,000 criminal charges laid over one decade: Researchers

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Edmonton police school resource officers laid more than 2,000 criminal charges over a decade, new research shedding light on the program shows.

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On Sunday, researchers Bashir Mohamed and Alexandre Da Costa, a University of Alberta professor, released data they analyzed and obtained through a freedom of information request of the Edmonton Police Service’s (EPS) school resource program that has existed since 1979.

“The fact this program has existed since 1979 and we’re only now getting enforcement data should be a scandal,” said Mohamed, who has been trying to get data since 2018 on the program that places officers in senior and junior high schools.

Currently, there are 14 school resource officers (SROs) in 17 schools.

Their research shows 2,068 people were criminally charged between September 2011 and December 2021. While Mohamed and Da Costa asked for charges against students, the data they received didn’t specify, which is why they use the term “people.”

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“So you might have a situation of trespassing,” Da Costa said. “But this also raises the question of, is the problem of safety also one that comes from outside the school?”

While they don’t have a lot of data on the charges, including types of offenses, Mohamed notes that they know through other requests of information by school trustees that in 2017, for example, only 1.6 per cent of all charges against students resulted in a guilty plea.

“That kind of shows how frivolous a lot of these charges actually are,” he said.

They were also cautious in determining the total charges. Mohamed said the data showed more than 1,600 were charged in 2016, which was four times higher than the next-highest year.

“We assumed that was an error. So we ended up having to take the average of every other year and use that average for 2016,” he said.

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The data also shows 20,963 students were labeled as “offenders” between 2011-2017. Data from September 2018 to December 2021 was unavailable and the researchers were not provided with a definition of “offender” from police.

However, in a statement, Edmonton police spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard said the term “offender” is defined as anyone who has committed a criminal offense or is found to be in contravention of provincial statutes or bylaws such as the education or traffic safety acts.

“Those numbers tell us that the way the program has been advertised as a community policing tool, as a tool focused on diversion, meaning students are turned away from the criminal justice system, we now know that that’s not entirely accurate,” said Mohamed.

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“We now know there’s another aspect of the program that is rooted within criminalization, that is rooted with introducing students to the criminal justice system.”

Furthering their concerns that the school resource officer program introduces students to the criminal justice system is the bait phone program. The researchers obtained the standard operating procedure for the program, which uses a cellphone equipped with a tracking device to catch suspected thieves.

Da Costa said it was surprising to see the document outline that the goal of the program was to identify suspects and “seek appropriate consequences through the judicial system.”

“(That) is exactly the type of criminalization that we’re talking about,” Da Costa said. “Is the appropriate consequence to put a student through the judicial system and link them into potentially the school to prison pipeline?”

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Sheppard said the police service is currently reviewing Mohamed and Da Costa’s research.

In separate statements, both the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) and the Edmonton Catholic School District (ECSD) said external researchers are currently reviewing their school resource officer programs. EPSB said their program is paused while under review, and a final report is expected in November.

ECSD, meanwhile, is in the final stages of the review, and the results and recommendations “will be brought forward at an upcoming Public Meeting of the Board.”

Sheppard added EPS is continuing to work closely with ECSD through their SRO program.

“Through positive youth engagement activities, we believe SROs build strong positive rapport with the school community.”

Meanwhile, both Mohamed and Da Costa hope other researchers engage with their work, which is ongoing. Da Costa said they are currently examining the hours of work officers do and how much time they spend interacting with school leadership, students, and teachers.

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