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Collateral Consequences of School Suspension: Examining the ‘Knifing off’ Hypothesis

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Abstract

School exclusionary practices are routinely used in response to undesired behaviors in the school environment and have been shown to have resulted in unintentional or collateral consequences for youth, including increased risk of arrest, offending behavior, and incarceration. Little research has been done on how school exclusion impacts interaction with prosocial peers and involvement in prosocial opportunities. This study applies the labeling perspective’s knifing off concept to examine whether prosocial exposures and deviant peer associations mediate the relationship between school suspension, arrest, and offending behavior. Using data from the LONGSCAN study, we examined whether suspension led to changes in prosocial peer association and activity involvement, increases in deviant peer association, and ultimately arrest and offending behavior. Results provided support for the labeling perspective’s hypotheses, finding school suspension was indirectly associated with both arrest and offending behavior via decreases in prosocial exposures and increases in deviant peer associations. Findings suggest policy makers should consider alternatives to school suspension where possible to avoid collateral consequences like reductions in prosocial exposures and deviant peer associations and should consider applying restorative approaches following a suspension experience to reintegrate youth into prosocial communities.

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Notes

  1. We refer to these measures as self-reported offending (age 18) and self-reported delinquency (age 12) to reflect the different composition of the measures.

  2. Self-reported offending and self-reported delinquency were measured as index variables, rather than latent constructs, because delinquency was not theorized to be unidimensional, nor were delinquent behaviors considered to be the result of underlying delinquent tendencies, as would be assumed if delinquency were to be operationalized as a latent construct. Different forms of delinquency such as theft and assault were considered to be manifestations of unique underlying tendencies, such as impulsivity and aggression. By not measuring offending/ delinquency as latent constructs, we avoid assuming these behaviors are the result of an underlying single construct.

  3. Age eight information was used for 78 youth. Results did not differ substantively when these youth were excluded from the sample. To increase power, they were retained and age eight free or reduced lunch information was used.

  4. Models were run using 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000 and 20,000 bootstrap samples. Results were stable across models, so 2000 samples were used for all analyses.

  5. Wiley et al. (2013) found being stopped or arrested by police in adolescence had small effects on access to prosocial activities and exclusion from prosocial peers, and Jacobsen (2017) found school suspension was associated with small decreases in association with normative peers. Because mediation effects are calculated by multiplying regression coefficients, mediation effects are smaller in magnitude than effect sizes deemed small by established standards (Fritz & MacKinnon, 2007). The proposed study involves multiple mediators in a given path, further reducing effect sizes associated with indirect effects. Research suggests a majority of mediation studies are not sufficiently powered, increasing risk of Type I error (Fritz & MacKinnon, 2007). Because sample size could not be increased, to account for the influence of measurement error in reducing statistical power (Hoyle & Kenny, 1999) and the magnitude of anticipated effect sizes associated with pathways involving multiple mediations, 90% confidence intervals were employed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminal Justice & Legal Studies, University of Mississippi, 303 Hedleston Hall, University, Oxford, MS, 38677-1848, USA

    Abigail Novak

  2. Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Marvin Krohn

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  1. Abigail Novak
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Novak, A., Krohn, M. Collateral Consequences of School Suspension: Examining the ‘Knifing off’ Hypothesis. Am J Crim Just 46, 728–747 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09579-5

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