Cumulative Racial and Ethnic Disparities Along the School-to-Prison Pipeline

• Author: Cecilia Chouhy,Kelly Welch,Peter S. Lehmann,Ted Chiricos
• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Date: 01 August 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00224278211070501
• Subject Matter: Original Research Articles

Cumulative Racial

and Ethnic Disparities

Along the School-to-

Prison Pipeline

Kelly Welch

1

, Peter S. Lehmann

2

,

Cecilia Chouhy

3

, and Ted Chiricos

3

Abstract

Objectives: Using the cumulative disadvantage theoretical framework, the

current study explores whether school suspension and expulsion provide

an indirect path through which race and ethnicity affect the likelihood of

experiencing arrest, any incarceration, and long-term incarceration in adult-

hood. Methods: To address these issues, we use data from Waves I, II, and IV

of the Add Health survey (N =14,484), and we employ generalized multi-

level structural equation models and parametric regression methods using

counterfactual def‌initions to estimate direct and indirect pathways. Results:

We observe that Black (but not Latinx) individuals are consistently more

likely than White persons to experience exclusionary school discipline

and criminal justice involvement. However, we f‌ind a path through which

race and Latinx ethnicity indirectly affect the odds of adulthood arrest

and incarceration through school discipline. Conclusions: Disparate

1

Department of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA

2

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville,

TX, USA

3

College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kelly Welch, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster

Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085, USA.

Email: kelly.welch@villanova.edu

Original Research Article

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2022, Vol. 59(5) 574–626

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278211070501

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exposure to school suspension and expulsion experienced by minority

youth contributes to racial and ethnic inequalities in justice system involve-

ment. By examining indirect paths to multiple criminal justice consequences

along a continuum of punitiveness, this study shows how discipline amplif‌ies

cumulative disadvantage during adulthood for Black and, to a lesser extent,

Latinx individuals who are disproportionately funneled through the

“school-to-prison pipeline.”

Keywords

school discipline, race and ethnicity, arrest and incarceration, cumulative

disadvantage

Introduction

The process whereby many students who are subjected to severe discipline

in schools are eventually punished in the juvenile and criminal justice

systems is commonly referred to as the “school-to-prison pipeline”

(Kupchik 2016; Skiba, Arredondo, and Williams 2014; Wald and Losen

2003). Several explanations for this link have been suggested, including

that the forces leading some students to break school rules also lead them

to break criminal laws (Mittleman 2018) or that youth may get arrested in

school for the same specif‌ic instances of misbehavior that result in discipline

(Cuellar and Markowitz 2015; Nolan 2011). Another suggestion is that

opportunities for legitimate success, such as college education and employ-

ment, may be diminished by school discipline (Fabelo et al. 2011; Robison,

Blackmon, and Rhodes 2016; Simmons 2017; Wolf and Kupchik 2017).

Further, it is plausible that the stereotyping of students as “troublemakers”

or “delinquents”can follow discipline that stigmatizes, thereby increasing

the likelihood of attracting enhanced scrutiny among teachers and school

administrators as well as criminal justice personnel. Thus, as Mittleman

(2018: 184) observes, “suspensions do more than simply punish delin-

quency. They actually help produce it.”

It is apparent that punitive trends in educational and criminal justice insti-

tutional contexts share certain similarities, one of which is disparate impact

according to race and ethnicity (Lewis and Diamond 2015). National data

show that punitive social controls within the realms of school discipline

and criminal justice are more likely to be experienced by persons of color.

Indeed, Black and Latinx individuals in the U.S. are more likely than

Welch et al. 575

Whites to experience suspension and expulsion from school (U.S.

Department of Education 2019) as well as be arrested by police (U.S.

Department of Justice 2019) and subsequently incarcerated in jail and

prison as adults (Carson 2020; U.S. Off‌ice of Justice Programs 2021).

Prior research also has demonstrated that one’s subjection to exclusionary

(rather than restorative) school discipline increases the likelihood of subse-

quent involvement in the justice system (e.g., Barnes and Motz 2018;

Gentile 2013; Jaggers et al. 2016; Monahan et al. 2014; Mowen and

Brent 2016; Shollenberger 2015; Wolf and Kupchik 2017). However,

what is not yet known is whether exclusionary school discipline intervenes

in the specif‌ic association between race and ethnicity and one’s future like-

lihood of exposure to justice system consequences of arrest and ensuing

incarceration, as would be predicted by a cumulative disadvantage theoret-

ical framework (Kurlychek and Johnson 2019; Sampson and Laub 1997;

Wooldredge et al. 2015). No research has yet shown whether the racial

and ethnic disparities evident in criminal justice arrests and incarcerations

are partly explained by an earlier disadvantaging experience of a suspension

or expulsion—childhood sanctions that we know are more commonly

imposed on Black and Brown youth.

In the current study, we use a cumulative disadvantage theoreticalperspec-

tive to examine the extent to which racial and ethnic disparities in sequential

criminal justice involvements are explained by prior lifetime experiences of

being suspended and expelled in school. We anticipate that because Black

and Latinx students disproportionately experience punishment in school,

the disadvantages that school sanctions produce would have a greater cumu-

lative effect for them as the “pipeline”toward possible arrest and subsequent

incarcerationproceeds during the life course.In essence, we predict that, if not

for the childhood experience of being disciplined in school, racial and ethnic

disparities in the criminal justice system would be less pronounced. Further,

we anticipate that these patterns will emerge in consideration of different

types or degrees of criminal justice involvement, such as an arrest, an incar-

ceration experience of one month or longer, and a long-term incarceration of

at least one year—disadvantageous experiences that represent a continuumof

justice system contact for which persons of color might be disparately at risk

due in part to unequal exposure to punitive forms of school discipline.

Because incarceration is a more intense form of social control than arrest,

and one that can only follow an arrest, a cumulative disadvantage theoretical

expectation for those who were disciplined harshly in school is an even

greater likelihood of incarceration, a vulnerability that we predict will be

higher for Black and Latinx individuals.

576 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 59(5)