Suspended Students Prone To Hold Guns, Sell Drugs In Adulthood

New York: Suspending students from school can do more harm than good, said researchers, suggesting that suspending students can serve as a negative and harmful turning point in adolescence, resulting in more crime like assaults, stealing and selling drugs in the neighbourhood. The study by researchers at Bowling Green State University and Eastern Kentucky University and published in Justice Quarterly found that rather than decreasing subsequent offending, school suspensions increase such behaviour. “Intensifying disciplinary strategies — what some have called the criminalization of school discipline — may do more harm than good and could result in more crime in schools, neighbourhoods and communities,” said Thomas James Mowen, assistant professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University. Mowen and colleagues studied to what extent being suspended from middle and high school was a turning point that led to more deviant behaviour. They also examined whether school suspensions, the most common response to youth’s misbehaviour at school, amplified the likelihood that adolescents would offend as they grew into young adults. Offending was defined as attacking or assaulting someone, possessing a gun, selling illegal substances, destroying property and stealing. The study found that exclusionary school discipline (suspensions) increased subsequent offending, substantially amplifying deviant behaviour as the youth moved through adolescence and into adulthood. Repeated suspensions further amplified subsequent offending. (IANS)

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