Can we Break the School to Prison Pipeline Through Partnerships?

• In Event: The School to Prison Pipeline

Abstract

Objectives: The over usage of exclusionary discipline to address school-based behaviors remains a substantive concern given the linkage between school discipline (e.g., suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to the juvenile justice system) and adulthood involvement in the legal. Research on strategies to reduce the usage of exclusionary discipline remains limited, warranting the quasi-experimental evaluation of School Justice Partnerships (SJPs).

Methods: A statewide evaluation of the effects of SJPs on disciplinary actions for school-based behaviors at the county-level was conducted by estimating multi-level interrupted time series analyses using publicly available.

Results: The results of the analyses suggested that the implementation of a SJP was associated with immediate reductions in the rate of complaints to juvenile justice and long-term suspensions, but not short-term suspensions and expulsions.

Conclusions: Improvements to the SJPs model should be implemented to ensure that all officials buy into a graduated response approach to disciplining school-based behaviors.

Authors

• Ian A. Silver, RTI International

• Christopher P. Krebs, RTI International

• Debbie Dawes, RTI International