In 2021, researchers at SUNY Albany looked at the school data from 2014 to 2018 in order to assess what effect having armed officers in schools had. They found that having an armed school resource officer, quote, marginally increases the likelihood of a school shooting, but they do point out that it's a small increase. On the flip side, quote, the introduction of an SRO does appear to improve general student safety by decreasing non-firearm-related violent offenses, such as physical attacks and fights.

But there's a big downside that the study also found from the study, quote, this benefit comes at a high cost of increased disciplinary responses by both the school and law enforcement. We find that SROs increase the incidence of in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, expulsion, police referral, and arrest, particularly in middle and high schools. For many of these disciplinary consequences, the increased use of punishment is over two times larger for black students than white students and significantly larger for students with disabilities than students without disabilities.