School Security

School security includes a wide range of strategies designed to protect pupils and staff within the walls of the school. Expenditures for school security have increased since the 1990s, driven primarily by the highly publicized incidents of school shootings in the United States and Canada, which have certainly affected the public perception of school security and the safety of schoolchildren. The resulting fear has contributed to the clamor for increasing school security measures, such as installing metal detectors, securing entrances to buildings, and assigning police officers to patrol school corridors.

Interestingly, whether any of these expenditures are justified based on the threat to children’s safety within the school is debatable. The media often portray a certain offense as more serious than it is in reality. For ...