The Influence of School-Level Characteristics on the School to Prison Pipeline

• In Event: School and Court Responses to Delinquent Youth

Abstract

Research indicates that schools’ Zero Tolerance and other “get tough” policies have led to increased school arrest, suspension, and expulsion rates. This shift has led to interest in understanding factors that contribution to variation in school arrest rates, and, at the same time, to the need to address the possibility that some schools may have youth who engage in more delinquency. This study thus seeks to examine the factors that influence school arrest rates, net of variation in community arrest rates. Using data from the Florida’s juvenile justice and education systems and spanning 2004-2011—the height of the Zero Tolerance era in Florida—this study examines 146,000 youths who received first-time referrals to the juvenile court. From these data, we create school-level arrest rates. Then we conduct analyses that assess the extent to which discipline practices (suspension and expulsion rates), student demographics (race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability status), school size, location (urban, rural), faculty demographics (race, gender, experience), and school performance factors (grades, college testing rates) affect school arrest rates, net of community crime rates.

Authors

• Alexa J. Singer, Florida State University

• Sonja E. Siennick, Florida State University

• Daniel P. Mears, Florida State University

• George B. Pesta, Florida State University

• Jennifer M. Brown, Florida State University