Evidence base of 1002 effect sizes from 32 quasi-experimental studies of school-based law enforcement¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 6 claims (6 for) · 1 study (1 quant-synthesis), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The review's synthesized corpus comprises "a final sample of 1002 effect sizes from 32 studies," identified through searches of 64 databases (through 2009), then 18 and 35 databases in 2015 and 2020 updates. Of these, 520 effect sizes examined crime/behavior outcomes at the school level, 349 at the student level, 13 and 20 examined perceptions, and 41 and 56 examined learning outcomes at school and student levels respectively. All effect sizes involved secondary schools at least in part, and all but three studies were based in the United States.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Studies had to use randomized or quasi-experimental designs comparing units with SBLE to units without SBLE or with different SBLE dosages

Constraints¶

• Only 42.6% of effect sizes came from published studies; over half of effect sizes included zero control variables, and no true experiments existed in the corpus

Target Learners¶

• Primary and secondary school students, teachers/staff, schools, and districts

Target Learning Goals¶

• Crime and behavior outcomes, perceptions of safety and school climate, and learning outcomes

Claims¶

• School-based law enforcement use is associated with greater crime and behavior problems in studies using schools as the unit of analysis [+W]
• The SBLE evidence base contains no randomized experiments and carries high risk of bias [+W]
• Review findings are consistent across study design features; no moderator showed meaningful relationships [+W]
• SBLE is associated with higher exclusionary discipline rates, with no detectable improvements to school crime or violence [+W]
• SBLE shows no beneficial effects on learning outcomes or other analyzed outcomes [+W]
• Student-level analyses find no statistically significant association between SBLE and crime or behavior outcomes, from only four reports [+W]

Related Elements¶

Examples¶

• Strengthen the evidence base on school-based law enforcement through rigorous experimental studies, including random assignment designs

Key Sources¶

• Fisher, B. W., Petrosino, A., Persson, H., Guckenburg, S., Fronius, T., Benitez, I., & Earl, K. (2023). School‐based law enforcement strategies to reduce crime, increase perceptions of safety, and improve learning outcomes in primary and secondary schools: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 19, e1360. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1360