Cycles of Punishment: The Bidirectional Relationship Between School Suspensions and Juvenile Justice Contact

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Abstract

Although school suspensions have been linked to increased juvenile justice contact, the causality of this relationship remains uncertain and the direction of effects is unclear, since most prior research relies on retrospective, self-reported data. Using a unique administrative dataset that links eight years of student data and juvenile justice data directly, this study finds that suspensions (especially out of school suspensions) are associated with higher odds of subsequent juvenile justice contact and that contact in turn increases the odds of subsequent out of school suspension after students return to school. In other words, the relationship between school suspensions and juvenile justice contact is bidirectional, in which students enter cycles of punishment rather than operating in one direction.

Author

• Horace Joseph Duffy, Rice University