Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of schools-based police officers in reducing crime.

The Home Office has reviewed the existing evidence on schools-based police officers. In particular, the findings of a 2012 systematic review (Petrosino et al., 2012) were noted, which assessed studies from the UK, the US and Canada. This concluded that while the evidence base for the effectiveness of policing in schools is promising, it is not yet developed enough to conclude whether policing schools has an effect on crime in schools. What evidence does exist has recently been reviewed by Prof Ben Bradford of UCL and this can be found on the PSHE Association website here: https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/sites/default/files/u26918/Police%20in%20schools%20Evidence%20Review_0.pdf The Home Office has not undertaken an assessment of the effect of deployment of schools-based police officers on each of the characteristics protected under the Equality Act 2010