Fast Facts on Lisa Kelly

Professor Lisa Kelly, a criminal law expert, has received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to study the controversial issue of whether police should patrol schoolyards and hallways. For her research project, “Police Powers in Canada’s Schools,” she has been awarded a two-year $55,000 grant to produce the country’s first extensive study on the topic from a legal perspective.

Professor Kelly spoke with Queen’s Law Reports about her groundbreaking project.

Why did you decide to initiate a project on police powers Canada’s schools at this particular time?

On November 22, 2017, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) voted to permanently cancel its School Resource Officer (SRO) program. The SRO program was introduced a decade earlier as a partnership between the TDSB, the Toronto Police Services, and the Toronto Catholic District School Board. The formal objective of the SRO program was to “improve safety (real and perceived) in and around public schools, improve the perception of the police amongst youth in the community and improve the relationship between students and police.” Opponents insisted that this socializing discourse papered over an intimidating practice that subjected young people, especially students of colour and students with disabilities, to greater surveillance and criminalization. 
 
The vote by Canada’s largest school board to terminate its SRO program marked a significant break from the decades-long trend of increased policing in North American schools. This project uses the Toronto SRO program as a case study for analyzing police powers in Canadian public schools.

What are your project goals?   

I will produce the first rigorous legal analysis of SRO programs in Canada; the first in-depth qualitative study of how Toronto school officials, police services, and advocacy groups conceived of the SRO program while it operated, including its legal scope and limits; and the first socio-legal study that contextualizes the Toronto SRO debates within the larger legal landscape of police powers. 

Studies indicate that although law plays an increasingly significant role in Canadian public education, school-based administrators and staff often lack confidence about their ability to make legally sound decisions. School principals, in particular, face unique challenges in balancing competing rights and interests in an increasingly complex legal framework. Likewise, students and families face legal uncertainty about their rights and duties at school, particularly with respect to police. While academics working in criminology, sociology, psychology, education, and business have produced important qualitative and quantitative work on school policing in recent years, legal scholarship has been remarkably sparse. Legal analysis of police powers at school – including the constitutional issues that searches, investigations, detentions, and arrests raise – is critically important.

How will you be conducting your research?

This project will trace the modern rise of School Resource Officer programs in North America from their origins in 1950’s Flint, Michigan, to their expansion across the United States in the 1970s through the 1990s to their eventual adoption by the Toronto District School Board in 2008. Working with research assistants in law and education, I will examine how concerns about school safety have shaped contemporary laws and policies on school discipline and surveillance, including the introduction of police into schools. In addition to researching relevant laws and policies, I will work with my research team to conduct qualitative interviews with police, school district, and community stakeholders who were active in the debates over Toronto’s SRO program. 

How will you be using your grant funds?

I will be using the grant funds to support graduate and JD research assistants, obtain relevant research materials, conduct qualitative in-person interviews, and disseminate our research results at academic and policy conferences.