NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Despite all the attention focused on improving security measures on school campuses around the nation, does all this technology actually keep students safer? Schools Under Surveillance: Cultures of Control in Public Education, a book released in November, addresses the issue of surveillance and technology deployed in schools and its impact on student safety.

The book, which is a compilation of data and information collected by various experts conducting field research in schools around the country, identified key themes regarding the perception and effectiveness of security measures in schools.

One of the conclusions is that technology is being deployed to protect students, but often these security measures provide a false sense of security, said Torin Monahan, co-editor and associate professor of human and organizational development and medicine at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. Video surveillance, for example, makes people feel like someone is monitoring the situation and if something were to go wrong, assistance would arrive promptly. However, in most cases that is absolutely false, he said.

“What surveillance, especially video surveillance is good at, is apprehending suspects after the fact, but it’s not good at preventing violent crime,” he said. This is evidenced by some of the most infamous school shootings. Columbine High School, which was equipped with both a video surveillance system as well as an armed guard, could do nothing to stop the shootings that occurred there in 1999. “The assumption that surveillance plays a preventative role is misguided,” Monahan said. “What surveillance does, especially video surveillance, is apprehend suspects after the fact and it’s not good at preventing violent crimes.”

Ironically, however, such shootings have sparked an increase in the implementation of surveillance measures in schools, but Monahan argues that “schools have historically been one of the safest places for students and they continue to be.”

And, he said, there are often unintended consequences of putting such security measures in place. “One thing that bothers me is the way in which surveillance technology can be used for purposes it was not intended for,” he said. “Monitoring school locker rooms in middle schools to watch girls change and those types of things might be seen as exceptional cases, except that the technology lends itself to those uses – it has mission creep potential.”

The book also speculates that much of the government funding directed at improving school security has contributed to an impression that schools are less safe than they actually are. “The Safe School Act of 1994 stipulated that schools had to demonstrate they had a crime problem so they could qualify for federal funds,” he said. “This ended up compelling schools to collect crime data and look to classify problems that they once considered just a nuisance so they could qualify for funding.” Monahan said that school administrators felt they couldn’t pass up funding for schools by not attempting to qualify for such programs.

The question of whether or not security measures are actually improving the safety of students is a critical question that must be asked, said Monahan. “It makes sense that school administrators, parents and community members would ask what specific problems these measures are intended to address and are those problems getting better?” he said.