Imitating Authority

• Author: Aaron Kupchik,Katie A. Farina
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204014557648
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
2016, Vol. 14(2) 147-163
Imitating Authority: Students’
ª The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1541204014557648
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Punishment and Security,
and Bullying Victimization
Aaron Kupchik1 and Katie A. Farina2
Abstract
Researchers and the public have devoted increasing attention over the past few years to the issue of
school punishment and security. Racial disproportionality in school suspension and arrests at school
and the resulting ‘‘school-to-prison pipeline’’ have been the most visible concerns. Others have
questioned whether excessive school punishment might contribute to problems at school such as
a negative school social climate, student alienation, and increased rates of student misbehavior. In
this article, we contribute to the growing body of research on this topic by exploring whether stu-
dents’ negative perceptions of school rules, punishments, and security practices relate to a previ-
ously unexplored potential consequence, that is, rates of bullying victimization. Using the 2009
School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, we find that students who
perceive school rules as unfair and poorly communicated are indeed at greater risk of bullying
victimization, relative to other students.
Keywords
school punishment, school security, bullying, victimization
In January 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education released a joint ‘‘Dear
Colleagues’’ letter addressing the problem of excessive school punishment and racial disproportion-
ality in school suspensions and arrests. This letter came on the heels of a December 2012 U.S. Senate
Subcommittee Hearing on the ‘‘school-to-prison pipeline,’’ a January 2013 U.S. House of Represen-
tatives Task Force Panel that addressed school security, and a host of policy changes intended to
address these issues among both states (e.g., California; see Adams, 2013) and cities (e.g., Denver;
see St. George, 2013). The topic of school crime and punishment has garnered greater attention
among researchers in recent years as well; though anecdotal, consider the fact that in the two most
1 Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
2 Department of Sociology and Criminology, Cabrini College, Radnor, PA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Aaron Kupchik, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 322 Smith Hall, Newark, DE
19716, USA.
Email: akupchik@udel.edu

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Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 14(2)
recent issues of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice (at the time of this writing, August 2014), 3 of
10 articles address delinquency and/or policing at school.
As scholars and policy makers have noted, in the past 20 years, schools across the United States
have changed how they police and punish students. The result is police officers in a majority of high
schools, zero-tolerance policies, increasing suspension rates, surveillance cameras, drug-sniffing
police dogs, and other practices that result in greater numbers of suspensions and arrests at school
(see Hirschfield & Celinska, 2011; Kupchik, 2010). As several studies have now demonstrated, these
practices have had negative consequences for students (for a review, see Hirschfield & Celinska,
2011). Though firm and fairly enforced rules and punishments are important for student safety
(Arum, 2003), schools tend to use excessive punishments that result in problems such as school fail-
ure and dropout, future arrest, and even increased rates of arrest for minor forms of misbehavior (see
Fabelo et al., 2011; Mayer & Leone, 1999; Nolan, 2011; Rios, 2011; Theriot, 2009; Way, 2011).
Further, since youth of color—particularly Black youth—are more likely to be singled out for pun-
ishment than White youth, these punishments increase racial disproportionality in school achieve-
ment and likelihood of arrest (see Ferguson, 2000; Hirschfield, 2008; Skiba, Michael, & Nardo,
2000).
A related concern that has been hypothesized but not empirically tested is that harsh school rules
and punishments might actually increase rates of school bullying. In Homeroom Security, Kupchik
(2010) argues that excessive school punishment looks a lot like bullying; he suggests that school
discipline might teach students bullying as a means of responding to stress or conflict. In this article,
we address this concern by considering whether students’ perceptions of unfair school rules and pun-
ishments relate to greater likelihood of bullying victimization.
School Punishment and Security
Over the past two decades, there has been an increase in criminal justice–oriented security measures
in schools, such as police officers (usually called school resource officers, or SROs), security guards,
locked gates, video cameras, closed-circuit television cameras, and metal detectors (Casella, 2001;
Hirschfield & Cielinska, 2011; Kim, Losen, & Hewitt, 2010; Kupchik, 2010). Despite substantial
and consistent decreases in student crime since the early 1990s (Robers, Kemp, Rathbun, Morgan,
& Snyder, 2014), suspension rates and rates of arrests for school misbehavior have increased as well.
Certainly, it is important for schools to implement firm and fair rules and to respond vigorously to
serious safety threats (see Arum, 2003). But the growing body of literature on school punishment
and security overwhelmingly finds that these strategies are, in practice, excessive. Evidence clearly
shows that schools can best prevent crime and misbehavior by adopting restorative approaches to
school discipline that seek to punish students who misbehave, but while teaching them proper beha-
viors and allowing them an opportunity to reintegrate into the school community; in contrast, sus-
pension and arrest of youth at school seek to exclude them, while failing to address underlying
reasons for misbehavior (see Cornell, 2006). Further, it is now clear that schools with inclusive
social climates—these are schools in which students feel respected, valued, and listened to—are
safer than others (see Cook, Gottfredson, & Na, 2010); yet contemporary policing and punishment
in schools can often deteriorate the school social climate by making schools more hostile and less
inclusive (Lyons & Drew, 2006; Noguera, 2003). Several studies document the use of harsh disci-
pline and harassment of students, as schools respond to real and perceived student misconduct using
policing practices rather than social welfare–oriented interventions (Ferguson, 2000; Kupchik, 2010;
Nolan, 2011; Rios, 2011). Some scholars find that these policies are implemented in a way that alie-
nates students, leading them to perceive the school’s authority as unjust (Bracy, 2011; Fine, Burns,
Payne, & Torre, 2004; Nolan, 2011). For example, in his ethnography of school discipline, Kupchik
(2010) finds that rigid rules and harsh punishments often mean that school authorities prioritize rules

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Kupchik and Farina
149
over students’ needs, applying rules without listening to students, trying to help them, or address the
reasons for their misbehavior. Several studies find that the security and discipline practices that have
proliferated across the United States are enforced in authoritarian ways that resemble what is defined
as bullying when it occurs between children; it involves a power imbalance (child vs. adult), it is
repeated over time (students defined as ‘‘troublemakers’’ are targeted by disciplinarians), and it is
demeaning (e.g., Harber, 2004; Kupchik, 2010; Lyons & Drew, 2006; Mukherjee, 2007; Nolan,
2011).
Bullying
Growing concerns about bullying have paralleled these concerns about school punishment. Bullying
is now recognized as a common form of victimization in American schools and is seen as a signif-
icant impediment to student well-being (Nansel, Overpeck, Haynie, Ruan, & Scheidt, 2001). Dan
Olweus (1993), a leading researcher on bullying prevention, defines bullying as consisting of three
primary components, namely, intentionality, an imbalance of power, and repetition. Though defini-
tions of bullying vary widely, and can often conflict, behaviors such as physical aggression, rela-
tional aggression, systematic exclusion, and destruction of property are often considered bullying
(Olweus, 2001). The frequency of bullying involvement among middle and high school students
in the United States (either as the perpetrator or victim) is estimated to be between 15% and 30%
(Hoover & Oliver, 1996; Melton et al., 1998; Nansel et al., 2001). For example, using a survey col-
lected by the World Health Organization, Nansel, Overpeck, Haynie, Ruan, and Scheidt (2001) ana-
lyze data on bullying collected from 15,686 sixth through tenth graders in public and private schools
in the United States; they find that nearly 30% of their entire sample report moderate or frequent
involvement in bullying, whether as a bully (13%), a victim of bullying (11%), or both (6%).
Similarly, cyberbullying, a distinct form of bullying, is a growing concern among parents, teach-
ers, students, and school administrators. Cyberbullying is similar to more traditional forms of bully-
ing, in that it is intentional, repeated over time, and involves an imbalance of power, but it occurs
through the use of technology. Cyberbullying can be perpetrated in online chat forums, text messa-
ging, e-mails, and on personal websites (Li, 2006). Although cyberbullying incidents typically occur
off of school grounds, their effects...