Grand Theft Education: Do Exclusionary School Punishment and Race Impact Property Crimes?

Abstract

Schools across the country are increasingly using punitive measures in response to student misconduct, with exclusionary school punishment becoming common in students’ lives. Exclusionary school punishment (ESP) is any form of school sanction that removes the student from the learning environment and excludes them from class, their peers, and other school activities. One goal of ESP is to deter students from future acts of misbehavior, though ESP tends to fail in this task. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and leaning on the tenants of labeling theory, I investigate the effects of ESP (measured by suspensions) on future deviance (measured by property crimes) in order to answer three research questions. (1) Are students who have experienced school suspensions more likely to commit property crimes than students who have never experienced suspension? (2) How does experiencing suspension impact participation in property crimes? (3) How does race influence these relationships? I find that students who have experienced suspensions have higher log odds of committing property crimes, and that this relationship differs across racial groups. These findings suggest that different methods of school sanctions should be considered to address misbehavior and systemic inequities within schools.