Net-Widening in Schools?: The Collateral Consequences of Safe School Expenditures for Suspension Rates

AuthorCresean Hughes,Eric A. Stewart,Caroline M. Bailey,Patricia Y. Warren
Published date01 January 2022
DOI10.1177/2153368719857215
Date01 January 2022
Subject MatterArticles
Net-Widening in Schools?
The Collateral Consequences
of Safe School Expenditures
for Suspension Rates
Cresean Hughes
1
, Caroline M. Bailey
2
,
Patricia Y. Warren
2
, and Eric A. Stewart
2
Abstract
Concerns about school safety are increasingly commonplace, especially considering
the attention garnered by mass shootings and other instances of crime in schools.
In response, billions of dollars in federal and state funding have been allocated to assist
and support the safeguarding of the school environment and those within the school.
However, it remains unclear whether safe school expenditures are consequential for
school-related outcomes—specifically, school suspension rates. To fill this void, the
current study uses multilevel Poisson and negative binomial regression to analyze
school and school district data from the Florida Department of Education, the U.S.
Census, the Uniform Crime Report, and the Florida Division of Elections. Findings
suggest that safe school expenditures are associated with lower suspension rates for
all students. However, the effect of expenditures on Black suspension rates indicates a
curvilinear relationship. Safe school expenditures are associated with an initial
reduction in the Black suspension rate to a certain threshold; however, once that
threshold is met, continual increases in expenditures increase the likelihood of Black
suspensions. Although safe school expenditures are associated with lower suspension
rates for all students, additional increases in spending on school safety widen the social
control net for Black students, thereby amplifying their likelihood of punishment.
Keywords
school punishment, race, ethnicity, expenditures, social control
1
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
2
College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Cresean Hughes, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 18 Amstel Avenue,
313 Smith Hall, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
Email: cresean@udel.edu
Race and Justice
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/2153368719857215
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2022, Vol. 12(1) 70–97
Article
Ensuring the safety and security of the school environment is a consistent expectation
of school stakeholders—students, parents, teachers, and administrators. A positive
school climate has been associated with a number of benefits including reductions in
student victimization, teacher victimization (Gottfredson, Gottfredson, Payne, &
Gottfredson, 2005), and student misbehavior (Stewart, 2003). The emphasis on safe
schools, while not new, has been heightened in the wake of high-profile school
shootings such as Columbine in Colorado, Newtown in Connecticut, and, more
recently, Stoneman Douglas in Florida and Sante Fe in Texas. Simon (2007) notes that
few news stories can be expected to garner as much attention as “the latest breaking
story of crime in schools” (p. 208; see also Kupchik & Bracy, 2009). In addition to
highly publicized instances of school crime, school disorder is a primary concern in
the school environment. In fact, research suggests that school disorder is detrimental
for a number of school-based outcomes including student learning and achievement,
self-control, student fear, and teacher victimization (Beaver, Wright, & Maume, 2008;
Cornell & Mayer, 2010; Dinkes, Cataldi, & Lin-Kelly, 2007; Randa & Wilcox, 2010).
In response to concerns about school crime and disorder, the allocation of state and
federal resources intended to make and keep schools safer has become an educational
priority (Kupchik, 2016). Schools and school districts now use safe school expendi-
tures to fund the implementation of various safety and security strategies. Indeed,
Kupchik (2016) estimates that American schools spend nearly US$15 billion annually
on school safety initiatives and personnel such as metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs,
surveillance cameras, and school resource officers (SROs). This movement toward
greater spending on control measures in schools has resulted in nearly 70%of schools
employing security guards and/or SROs and over 80%of schools installing surveil-
lance cameras (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018; Robers, Kemp, & Truman, 2013). What
remains unclear, however, is what the influx of funding for safe school initiatives and
strategies means for school punishment. This is especially relevant considering the
current era of punitiveness in schools, characterized by the adoption of zero-tolerance
policies, an expanding security and/or law enforcement presence, the increased use of
more punitive disciplinary sanctions in schools, such as suspensions and expulsions
(Hirschfield, 2008; Losen & Martinez, 2013; Theriot, 2009), and the disproportionate
punishment of racial and ethnic minorities (Losen & Skiba, 2010; McCarthy & Hoge,
1987).
To date, much of the existing scholarship on the effects of school expenditures is
not only limited to the relationship between expenditures and student achievement but
also equivocal in its findings (Condron & Roscigno, 2003; Cullen, Polnick, Robles-
Pin
˜a, & Slate, 2015; Elliott, 1998; Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine, 1996; Parcel &
Dufur, 2001; Walberg & Fowler, 1987; L. Zhang, 2009). In addition, scholars have
rarely disaggregated school expenditures into the various categories of expenditures
that schools and districts manage—for example, instructional, operational, adminis-
trative, and so on (Webber & Ehrenberg, 2010). Even as funding for school safety has
soared, scant attention has been given to safe school expenditures and the impact they
may have in schools. Considering these gaps in the literature as well as the growth in
safe school expenditures, further exploration is necessary to better understand how
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Hughes et al.

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