At the Nexus of Education and Incarceration: Four Voices from the Field

School Discipline and Racial Disparities in Early Adulthood

“…Substantial research highlights that Black students are more likely to be suspended and expelled than their White classmates (see, e.g., Barrett, McEachin, Mills, & Valant 2019; Office for Civil Rights 2016), a disparity that scholars argue exacerbates disparities in adult criminal justice contact (Wald and Losen, 2003). Recently, the connection between schools and the carceral system has been described as the school-to-prison nexus, where school discipline is a key axis of practices that normalize control and monitoring of people of color (Becker et al, 2017;Sojoyner, 2013). Despite these discussions, the degree to which students who experience school discipline experience worse outcomes in young adulthood is not well established, and the degree to which school discipline can explain racial disparities in early adulthood is unclear.…”

“…ubstantial research highlights that Black students are more likely to be suspended and expelled than their White classmates (see, e.g., U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2016), and scholars argue that these disparities in educational experiences exacerbate disparities in adult criminal justice contact (Wald & Losen, 2003). The reliance on exclusionary discipline, policing, and harsh security measures creates school environments that criminalize youth of color (Kupchik & Ward, 2014;Rios, 2011), as the school-to-prison nexus brings carceral logics from the criminal justice system into schools and normalizes the control and monitoring of people of color (Becker et al, 2017;Sojoyner, 2013). Although existing research underscores how school discipline contributes to racial inequities in shorter term educational outcomes by constructing criminalized identities (e.g., Rios, 2011), the degree to which such experiences shape later-life disadvantage and contribute to long-term disparities is not well established.…”