HOWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. (1010 WINS) -- Two more New Jersey school districts join a growing number of boards of education that are hiring armed security guards for school buildings in response to last Month's Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed.
Howell Township announced on Tuesday an intention to hire “Special Law Enforcement Officers” for each of the district’s school buildings, and Middle Township said it will hire an additional armed security guard for each of its buildings.
The difference between the two approaches is that Class III Special Law Enforcement officers report to police, whereas security guards report to school administrators.
Howell intends to introduce nine new officers into its schools by September — bringing the total to 17.
The cost will be split between the municipality and the school district.
Middle Township wants to hire four retired law enforcement officers as armed security guards — one for each school.
The district already has two school resource officers and two armed security guards.
The school district will foot the bill for the additional security with no subsidy from the municipality.
Middle and Howell Townships are the latest in a growing list of New Jersey school districts that are arming up in response to the Uvalde massacre.
The board of education in Middletown, not to be confused with Middle Township, unanimously voted to hire armed retired police officers as security through at least the end of the 2022-2023 school year.
Washington Township is hiring two new school resource officers.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on school “hardening” measures like hiring armed security guards since the Columbine massacre in 1999, but studies have repeatedly shown these steps to be ineffective at preventing gun violence.
A 2019 study from the University of Toledo and Ball State University found that visible security was effective at alleviating parents’ fears, but failed to protect children from shootings.
Twenty years after Columbine, more than 226,000 children at 223 schools had been exposed to gun violence.
At least 143 people were killed in those shootings, and 294 more were injured.
The study concluded that the “ideal method for eliminating school firearm violence by youths is to prevent them from ever gaining access to firearms.”
One of the problems with relying on armed adults to combat active shooters in schools is the speed at which most school shootings are carried out, according to the study.
The paper uses the January 2018 school shooting at Marshall County Highschool in Benton, Kentucky as an example.
A 15-year-old boy armed with a semiautomatic pistol killed two people and wounded fourteen in the span of 10 seconds.
Armed guards would have needed to be physically present to even have a chance at reducing the casualties, and even then they’d be firing into a room crowded with children.
An armed school resource officer was present at the Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde — the incident which inspired the recent hiring of armed guards in New Jersey.
When he heard about the shooter, he rushed to the school, but he “drove right by the suspect” before the shooter had even entered the premises, according to police. The guard failed to prevent any violence as the shooting continued for over an hour.
While armed security or police officers at schools don’t offer meaningful protection against school shootings, they do increase the rate of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals and student arrests, according to a 2021 study from Brown University, which also found armed adults in schools do not reduce gun violence.
The same study found school officers disproportionately targeted Black students — especially Black boys — for these punishments. Students with disabilities were also disproportionately targeted.
These studies are not unique. Time, Poynter and Education Next aggregated other studies that unanimously find school safety officers fail to prevent gun violence but increase the criminalization of students.
Related
Related
