How School Security Measures Harm Schools and Their Students

Abstract In this essay, Drew Chambers argues that the implementation of modern security technology in American schools (also known as target hardening) may do more harm than good, especially when such technologies represent the primary mode of risk responsiveness. In using technological measures to reduce risk, schools may inadvertently undermine both other responses to school violence as well as key aims of schooling itself. Here, Chambers provides a survey of the dominant trends in school security measures and the empirical scholarship related to those measures' effectiveness and outcomes. He then provides four independent arguments for why reliance on security technology might be more harmful than not. First, reliance on technology as a response to school violence can ultimately limit more effective approaches to school safety that are not technological. Second, the more securitized schools become, the more such securitization detracts from teaching and learning as the main enterprise of schools. Third, surveillance measures unintentionally propagate fear in students and may inhibit healthy adolescent development. Fourth, security technology has a unique capacity to harmfully alter student–teacher relationships. These arguments, taken together, should suggest an abundance of caution is in order when it comes to securitizing schools.