Officer George Duarte patrols the cafeteria during a lunch period at Roger Williams Middle School, in Providence. The school has about 850 students in grades 6 through 8, and the majority perform below grade level in reading, math and writing.

PROVIDENCE — “Nice haircut!” barks the police officer. “Nice haircut!”

Patrolman Christopher Owens walks the halls of Hope High School and confronts the teenage boys who stroll the halls with flat-brim baseball caps or hooded sweatshirts covering their heads. The boys know that Owens couldn’t care less about their hairstyle; instead, he is sending a message that the look of a gangster or thug will not be tolerated on school grounds.

Owens, an imposing man at 6-feet, 6 inches and 272 pounds, pauses and glares until the boys remove their hats or turn down their hoods.

He appears very comfortable in this world. He climbs the stairwells looking for graffiti, drops by the gym to chat with the physical education teacher and makes sure that he’s on duty for the waves of students who lunch in the cafeteria.

“If I see someone give somebody an eye, I will immediately talk to them,” Owens said.

Armed with .40-caliber handguns, uniformed police officers, known as school resource officers, have been a welcome presence in many of the city’s troubled high schools and middle schools for the past five years. They mediate disputes, forge relationships, gather intelligence and arrest students who commit crimes inside and outside the buildings where they are supposed to get an education.

In recent years, officers have also been posted in schools in other communities across the state including Pawtucket, South Kingstown, Cumberland and even Chariho High School in rural Richmond.

But Providence, the state’s largest city with nearly 26,000 students, many of whom live in poverty, has the greatest need for reinforcements. The Police Department budgets about $1 million a year for 11 full-time police officers to keep close tabs on what thousands of students are doing in seven high schools and five middle schools across the city. School and police officials felt that the officers were most needed in these schools. Some of the officers are responsible for more than one school.

And there is plenty going on. Over the last two years, the police have averaged 278 arrests a year for charges such as sexual assault, possession of guns and knives, felony assault and threatening to kill a police officer. So far this school year, through Wednesday, the police had made 245 arrests on school grounds.

Capt. Keith J. Tucker, who runs the Providence police Youth Bureau, said the school resource officers have thwarted countless crimes and disturbances that would have boiled over into violent confrontations had the police officers not been there.

Tucker said the school resource officers are not looking to make arrests.

“We want to have positive relationships with the kids,” Tucker said. “When you arrest kids in school, it’s not a measure of success. We want to be involved in creating a good learning environment.”

The concept of a greater police presence in the Providence schools came in 1990 after a Cambodian teenager, armed with a .357 Magnum revolver, opened fire into a crowd of students outside Central High School. The shooter had been seeking revenge against a “white boy who had been bothering me,” according to trial testimony.

Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy, then assigned to the Youth Bureau, said the department formed a School Squad, a unit of officers that regularly stopped by the city’s high and middle schools. Shortly after Col. Dean M. Esserman was appointed police chief in 2003, the department moved to have school resource officers permanently assigned to the city’s largest and most troubled schools.

Esserman said he would love to have a school resource officer in each of the city’s 53 schools.

“It’s a serious job and very well respected in the Police Department,” he said. “We take it seriously and train them seriously.”

Kennedy said that younger people are committing more serious crimes and the most violent segment is young males between the ages of 16 and 22 years old.

“We came to realize that we might be missing the boat here,” Kennedy said. “We realized that developing relationships in the schools could pay big dividends.”

Over the past two weeks, The Journal visited three schools with full-time school resource officers: Hope High School, Roger Williams Middle School and the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex, which houses the Providence Academy for International Studies and Cooley Health & Science Technology high schools. All of the schools are large — more than 800 students — and predominately Latino. Many of the students are from single-parent families and live in poverty. The officers see countless students who arrive at school with empty stomachs and red-eyed from too little sleep.

Gangs are active in all three schools, and too many of the students are related to, or know someone, who has been shot, stabbed or killed.

The three school resource officers are all married with children. They seem approachable and appear to have a good rapport with the boys and girls who drop by their offices or greet them in the hallways. They attend school sporting events and dances. All of them chose to apply for assignments in the schools.

Officer George Duarte knew there were plenty of problems at Roger Williams Middle School, on the city’s South Side, when he was assigned there last September. The school has about 850 students in grades 6 through 8, and the majority of the children struggle in school. According to the School Department, just 22 percent of the school performs at grade level or above in reading, 15 percent in math and 7 percent in writing.

Duarte, a former correctional officer, enjoys working with the children, and he knows that many of them have very difficult home lives. They live in overcrowded apartments that often lack heat. It’s not unusual for a student’s mother to be arguing with a boisterous boyfriend who keeps everyone up all night.

Duarte, a fit and compact man at 5-feet, 6-inches tall, walks the halls and talks to teachers, administrators and students.

“Did you sleep last night?” he said to a student. “Is everything good at home?”

If Duarte suspects that a student is having major issues outside of school, he drops by and tries to talk to a parent.

He keeps an eye on gang activity and makes sure that graffiti tags promoting certain gangs are quickly scrubbed off the walls. He knows that many of the older boys pressure the younger boys to join their gangs. In the beginning of the year, he said, a small Asian sixth grader came to school each day visibly upset. He cried and told his teachers that he didn’t want to be in school. A school psychiatrist took an interest in him.

Duarte learned that the boy had two older brothers who the police suspect are members of the Original Crip Gang. Gang members wanted the boy to join them, and they sat with him each day at lunch. Duarte and school officials tried to counsel the boy and the school psychologist met with his mother.

In the end, the gang prevailed. Duarte said the boy “turned his back” on the psychologist and others who tried to help him.

“He is with them,” said Duarte, as the pint-sized boy with the backpack hustled by him in the hall. “He is just part of them.”

In the hallway, he pointed out a girl he had arrested for attacking another girl in the cafeteria. The girl was suspended and left for Puerto Rico. A few weeks later, she returned to school with gang tattoos on her back, hand and knuckles. The girl is 12 years old.

This school year, Duarte has arrested about 30 students on charges such as sexual assault, robbery, assault and disorderly conduct. Some days, he said, he mediates as many as three disputes among feuding teens. The students are summoned to his office and they try to iron out their differences.

Sometimes, more drastic measures are necessary. In the building’s basement, there is a classroom for students with behavior disorders. When a student becomes unruly, he or she is sent to the “Time Out Room,” an adjacent closet-sized room with a heavy door, tiled floor and padded walls. There, the student remains for up to five minutes until he calms down.

Principal Rudolph A. Moseley Jr. said that things have improved at Roger Williams. He pointed out that there were 51 suspensions last month, down from 136 in February 2007. He said that Duarte has been a big factor in the turnaround.

“The guy is top notch,” Moseley said. “If the children have any kinds of problems or issues, they go to him. And, we have seen changes in behavior.”

ACROSS THE CITY, Patrolman Owens sits in his office at Hope High School, on the city’s East Side, and flips through the reports of the 64 arrests he has made this year. Back in the early ’80s, Owens starred on the school’s basketball team and the office was used as a boys’ bathroom.

The office isn’t the only thing that has changed in the past 20 years. Owens, who has three children, said that many of the students call him “Dad,” and they stop by his office for snacks and soft drinks. He is astonished at the myriad of problems that the teenagers face.

Too many girls in the school of 1,400 students are having unprotected sex, he said.

“Sex is nothing to them,” Owens said. “I try to preach to them to save yourselves. I know that there are at least 15 girls pregnant here.”

A few months ago, a 16-year-old girl and boy left school early to have sex behind an abandoned house. She returned to school and confided in Owens after the boy “came back and told everyone.” The boy was arrested for sexual assault.

Too many of the boys are drawn to street gangs. Sure, there were fights when Owens was in high school, but back then, the disputes were settled with fists — not guns and knives. Owens and the school administrators are vigilant about keeping gang activity in check. They confiscate bandannas, hats and other clothing affiliated with groups such as the Hanover Boyz, Latin Kings and MS-13. He said the staff keeps extra clothes in the main office for students who have to surrender their gang attire.

Owens often sits in classes to make sure simmering beefs don’t erupt.

Last Tuesday, Owens arrested a 15-year-old boy in the vice principal’s office after a knife with a 3¼-inch blade fell out of his backpack. “For him, I think the knife is used for defense,” he said.

Also seized were several pens, markers and used spray paint nozzles. In recent weeks, vandals have desecrated the bathroom walls with graffiti.

The boy was taken to police headquarters and he was released for a future date in Family Court.

In the cold months, Owens said, many of the students don’t come to school because they cannot afford winter coats. Others drop in for the free lunch and “after they eat, they bounce.”

Last year, Owens said, he ran a coat drive and got parkas for many of the students. Another time, Owens and some of the teachers chipped in for a prom dress for a girl who could not afford one. He said that he’s impressed by how much time and effort school administrators and teachers devote to the school. “They are really trying hard,” he said.

BACK IN THE SOUTH SIDE, Officer Wayne Marshall arrives for work each morning at the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex on Thurbers Avenue. He finds anonymous notes under his door with messages about potential conflicts brewing between students. Some of the teenagers call Marshall “uncle” and feel comfortable chatting with him in his office or in the halls. He said that others keep their distance for fear that they might be labeled a snitch.

In his office, Marshall has a bank of three computer screens that allows him to monitor all school activity through closed circuit cameras.

Nkoli Onye, principal of the Providence Academy for International Studies, P.A.I.S., one of the two high schools in Juanita Sanchez, says “Thank you,” to Marshall whenever she sees him patrolling the hallways. She considers him a key part of the school community and she values his input as a police officer and adult.

“It’s important to have another role model in the building,” said Onye. “He’s a nice guy and he’s got a job to do. He’s constantly talking to kids and they feel comfortable with him.”

On Thursday, Marshall made two arrests in the school: one for carrying a knife; the other for marijuana possession.

Marshall’s knowledge of the school and its students led to the arrest of a juvenile who allegedly shot a man on Broad Street this year. The shooting took place on Jan. 3 outside Yang Restaurant, and a report was broadcast with a description of the suspect and his first name.

School was still in session when Marshall heard his police radio crackle about the shooting a few blocks away.

Marshall jumped in his cruiser and raced to the scene. He knew a troubled youth by that name who had been a student at the Juanita Sanchez complex. The information led to the arrest of a 16-year-old juvenile in the shooting of Donique D. Jordan, 18, who suffered serious gunshot wounds to the chest and stomach. He nearly died at Rhode Island Hospital, the police said.

No day is the same for a school resource officer.

A few months ago, Marshall took an interest in an 18-year-old student with a 2-year-old daughter. The student is from a broken home and the officer got her an after-school job with the Providence After School Alliance program at Roger Williams Middle School.

Around Christmas, Marshall asked her about her holiday plans. She didn’t have any. The money she saved from her job was going to gifts for her daughter. He reached into his own pocket and bought the baby two pairs of pajamas and got the mother a $25 gift card at Old Navy, the clothing store.

Marshall said the girl had tears in her eyes when he presented her with the gifts.

“In this job, you see so much,” he said. “So many of these kids have nothing.”

bmalinow@projo.com