Sheriff seeks grant to expand resource officers to elementary schools

School resource officers might be placed in eight Beaufort County elementary schools to give young children positive exposure to law enforcement if Sheriff P.J. Tanner receives a federal grant.

The U.S. Department of Justice initially turned down Tanner's request for about $800,000 to cover salaries and equipment for the additional officers, but the grant will be reviewed again in October, he said.Hiring and equipping a new officer costs about $100,000, Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Cpl. Robin McIntosh said.

Each of the county's four high schools, six middle schools and the Beaufort-Jasper Academy for Career Excellence has full-time school resource officers. None of the elementary schools has a program that puts officers in schools daily, Tanner said.

"Those are critical times in a child's life," Tanner said. "... We're missing out on what an impression a uniformed law officer can make on children's lives prior to middle school."

Tanner said the Sheriff's Office has not seen much crime in elementary schools, but he said the number of crimes committed by children between the ages of 11 and 14 is on the rise.

Between June 2007 and May 2008, 94 children in that age bracket were enrolled in two Sheriff's Office programs to address juvenile crime -- Fresh Start and Success, Motivation and Responsibility Training. Juvenile prosecutions in that age bracket numbered 197, according to data from the Sheriff's Office.

Between June 2008 and May 2009, 115 children in that age bracket were enrolled in the two programs and there were 212 prosecutions, according to data from the Sheriff's Office.

If officers can reach middle school-age students earlier -- before they've developed bad habits that lead to criminal behavior -- those numbers might fall, Tanner said.

Too often, young children's exposure to officers is negative, Tanner said.

"They are seeing law enforcement officers arrest a parent, sibling, an aunt or uncle or friend," Tanner said. "They see that because we answer domestic violence calls, or make drug arrests .... and other issues that leave the impression on a child's mind at an early age that law enforcement is the bad guy."

Interacting with students daily at school could change those impressions, Tanner said. At the elementary level, resource officers could help with character and behavior education, he said.

The school district, Sheriff's Office and citypolice departments now share the cost of the middle and high school resource officers, with the school district paying about 75 percent. Costs include salaries, benefits, training equipment and uniforms.

The school district has budgeted nearly $524,000 for school resource officers this year, said Phyllis White, the district's chief operational services officer.

Fred Washington Jr., chairman of the Beaufort County Board of Education, said he agrees schools should help children develop good behavior habits at an early age but isn't sure that help must come in the form of additional officers.

With the school district's budget constraints, Washington said schools probably couldn't afford to hire more officers on their own.

"If (Tanner) is successful in doing it and he can pay for it, that's fine," Washington said. "... Philosophically, my position is to use other avenues, other existing avenues, to get the same results."

Chris Barrow, the district's protective services coordinator, said he supports Tanner's idea, saying school resource officers have been an asset to the district at its middle and high schools.

"One of the reasons we support the grant is because we couldn't take on that type of commitment on our own," he said.

Tanner said if his grant is not approved this fall, he'll search for other ways to fund the officers.

"I'd like to have some serious debate and see opportunities arise through the school district," he said. "This is something that really needs to be entertained. It needs to be looked at. It needs to be analyzed."

Although Tanner's grant would pay for officers at eight of the district's 17 elementary schools, he hopes officers are eventually present in all elementary schools. Within Bluffton and Beaufort, however, the school resource officer program is run by the municipal police departments.

Neither the Beaufort nor Bluffton police department plans to put school resource officers in elementary schools, said Beaufort Chief Matthew Clancy and Bluffton Chief David McAllister said. But McAllister said would welcome the idea if funding was available.

"The sheriff has the absolutely right idea that the relationship between kids and cops and cops and kids has got to be started at the earliest possible age we can do it," McAllister said.