In recent years, some school districts across Allegheny County have made noteworthy changes to school policing. While some districts have sought to reduce or eliminate reliance on police, a growing number of other districts in the county have, with community support announced expanded police presence and in some cases have decided to arm police. Yet there has been little public reporting about the actual presence of police in Allegheny County schools.
While data on police presence is limited, in this brief we find that:
- School police presence has increased across Allegheny County over the past five years.
- School security guards are disproportionately located in county districts with the highest concentrations of students of color, while school police are more evenly distributed.
- Allegheny County school districts with higher concentrations of students of color spend more per pupil on “safety and security” measures.
