From School Halls to Shopping Malls: Multilevel Predictors of Police Contact In and Out of School

• Published date: 01 August 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00224278221096985
• Author: Stephanie A. Wiley,Lee Ann Slocum,Finn-Aage Esbensen
• Date: 01 August 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

From School Halls

to Shopping Malls:

Multilevel Predictors

of Police Contact In

and Out of School

Stephanie A. Wiley

1

,

Lee Ann Slocum

2

,

and Finn-Aage Esbensen

2

Abstract

Objectives: Individual- and school-level factors associated with youth being

stopped, searched, or arrested in school are identif‌ied. Correlates of com-

munity-based contact are also examined. Methods: Longitudinal student sur-

veys and corresponding school-level data come from 21 middle and high

schools in 6 districts in St. Louis County, Missouri. Multilevel multinomial

logistic regression was used to assess factors related to a three-category

dependent variable, distinguishing youth with: (1) no police contact, (2)

in-school contact, and (3) out-of-school contact. Independent variables

capture student-level demographics, behavior, experiences, and percep-

tions and school-level characteristics and practices. Results: Factors associ-

ated with in-school contact include substance use, peer associations, prior

contact, and prior school sanctions. Odds of school-based contact also

1

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

2

University of Missouri—St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Stephanie A. Wiley, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University,Saywell Hall 10209, 8888

University Dr., Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada.

Email: swiley@sfu.ca

Article

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2023, Vol. 60(5) 623–663

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278221096985

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increase when youth are less aware of school rules and perceive greater

disorder. Among school-level characteristics, only off‌icers responding to

school problems is signif‌icantly associated with in-school contact.

Conclusions: There is some consistency in individual-level factors associated

with police contact across locations, particularly related to prior sanctions,

but f‌indings highlight potential mechanisms that vary across contexts. This

study also provides evidence that some schoolwide responses may contrib-

ute to youth’s likelihood of having police contact in school, but solutions

should consider the f‌luidity of contact in schools and communities.

Keywords

police encounters in schools, secondary sanctioning, police contact,

zero tolerance

In recent decades, scholars have increasingly considered how schools facil-

itate justice system involvement among youth. The school-to-prison pipe-

line, or systematic funneling of students out of schools and into the

justice system, is believed to work in two ways. First, overreliance on exclu-

sionary discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions, increases students’

likelihood of dropping out, which may indirectly lead to justice system

involvement (Monahan et al. 2014; Mowen and Brent 2016; Wolf and

Kupchik 2017). Another pipeline is through direct contact with the justice

system and its representatives. Some zero-tolerance policies require that

certain behaviors, including violence or threats of violence, be met with

justice system referrals (American Psychological Association 2008).

Moreover, when off‌icers are stationed in schools, they are quickly posi-

tioned to intervene when even minor misbehavior is suspected. With 46

percent of public schools (National Center for Education Statistics 2019)

and almost 60 percent of secondary schools (Musu-Gillette et al. 2018)

reporting the presence of a sworn law enforcement off‌icer, a substantial

number of today’s youth have a direct line to the justice system.

Research at the individual-level indicates that police contact in schools is

a relatively frequent occurrence. For example, Geller’s (2017) research

shows that up to 51 percent of police stops reported by youth between the

ages of 9 and 15 occurred at school.

1

The nature of encounters in schools,

however, can vary considerably. In some cases, off‌icers stationed in the

624 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 60(5)

community respond to calls at schools on an as-needed basis or intercept

youth on school grounds during non-school hours. Many schools have off‌i-

cers stationed inside on a full- or part-time basis. Through the course of daily

routines or on-campus events (e.g., athletic, social), these school-based off‌i-

cers have more opportunities for surveillance and interactions with youth,

f‌illing roles beyond what is typical for community-based off‌icers. Along

with traditional law enforcement activities, school-based off‌icers are often

tasked with mentoring and educational responsibilities (Coon and Travis

2012; Finn and McDevitt 2005; McKenna and White 2018). These nontra-

ditional roles provide a foundation for informal relationships between off‌i-

cers, school personnel, and students, which can impact the nature of policing

in schools. For example, off‌icers may be inf‌luenced by the needs and desires

of school personnel (Curran et al. 2019; McKenna, Martinez-Prather, and

Bowman 2016) or use personal knowledge of students to determine how

and when to intervene (Kupchik et al. 2020; Rhodes and Clinkinbeard

2020). If barriers between off‌icers and students are broken down, school-

based off‌icers can leverage personal and background information that

community-based patrol off‌icers do not have at their disposal. Used judi-

ciously, these relationships and information can encourage informal han-

dling of misbehavior and successfully divert youth from the justice

system. However, the ability to leverage informal relationships and students’

personal information might negatively affect some students if off‌icers differ-

entially engage in law enforcement practices as a result.

Although police-initiated encounters that occur in school versus the com-

munity may differ in important ways, little attention has been paid to distin-

guishing the correlates of these encounters. Some efforts to identify who is

at higher risk for police contact in schools rely on administrative data to link

school characteristics to rates of school-based arrests and justice system

referrals. These data point to disparate impacts by school socioeconomic

and racial composition, with impoverished schools and those serving a

greater percentage of Black students reporting higher rates of justice

system contact (Homer and Fisher 2020; Irwin, Davidson, and

Hall-Sanchez 2013; Miner et al. 2018). Linking school characteristics to

rates of school-based arrests and referrals is necessary for identifying the

scope of the problem, but it is not clear which individual-level factors

affect youth’s encounters with police at school. Given that off‌icers remain

stationed in schools across the country, shedding light on the correlates of

police encounters by location can help to identify ways to reduce the likeli-

hood that certain youth will have police contact as well as target school prac-

tices that might contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Wiley et al. 625