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violent offenses including homicide, rape, or serious assault (Juvenile Diversion Guidebook, 2011).

However, if the youth is eligible for diversion, the school resource officer, police officer, or

juvenile court counselor may enter into a diversion contract with the juvenile and the juvenile’s

parent/guardian. (For a list of various state diversion statutes see Juvenile Diversion Guidebook –

Models for Change, 2011.)

School Resource Officers and School-Based Diversion

According to the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), school

resource officers are officers placed in a school with a triad of responsibilities: educator, informal

counselor, and law enforcer; with the goals of educating, counseling, and protecting school

communities (Canady, James, & Nease, 2012). SROs are usually either employed by the school

district or are sworn police officers employed by the local police department (Kim & Geronimo,

2009). Between 2003 and 2012, the U.S. Department of Education reports that during the 2003/04

school year, 24.8% of public schools had the daily presence of police or security personnel as

compared to 57.6% in 2011–2012 (U.S. Department of Education, 2013).

Schools have become a primary source of justice system referrals (School-Based Diversion,

2011) and that statistic has been steadily increased (U.S. Department of Education, 2013).

National education and criminal justice scholars attribute this increase to school policy reform -

including zero-tolerance policies and high-stakes testing (Ruis, 2017; Skiba, 2013), more students

presenting with trauma, mental health challenges, and disabilities (Skowyra & Cocozza, 2006), and

resource officers making justice referrals for discipline that was previously meted out by school

administrators (Justice Policy Institute, 2011).

Since 2000, law enforcement officers have assumed a greater presence in many schools

across the U.S. and are often called on to assist with behavioral issues (Berger, Lipsey, Dennison,

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