There is growing concern that school discipline policies increase children’s risk of contact with the justice system, promoting a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Despite the popularity of this concern, the evidence of discipline’s impact on arrests remains limited in important ways. The current study leverages a unique combination of data sources to provide plausibly causal evidence that school suspensions mark a turning point in children’s lives, increasing their risk of later arrest. Combining fifteen years of data from the Fragile Families and Childhood Wellbeing Study with contextual data on neighborhoods and schools, I estimate that suspended children are two times more likely to experience an adolescent arrest than otherwise similar children. Although suspended children experienced significantly greater escalations in delinquency than their peers, post-suspension changes in behavior are unable to explain the association between childhood suspension and adolescent arrest. Instead, the data are consistent with a labeling theory of school sanctions, whereby suspended children face higher rates of subsequent discipline in ways that are largely unexplained by their reported behavior. At a time when juvenile arrests can permanently alter youth’s risks and opportunities, this study highlights an important mechanism by which schools shape inequality across the institutions that govern children’s lives.
The School to Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime