Since the emergence of zero tolerance discipline policies in the 1990s, schools have increasingly been relying on suspensions as a behavioral management tactic. However, these policies can potentially stigmatize students and expose them to the criminal justice system. A field of developing research strongly suggests a correlation between school discipline and the likelihood of dropping out, arrests, and incarceration.

A working paper recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research reports some of the first causal evidence that strict schools do indeed contribute to the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. The study’s authors are Andrew Bacher-Hicks and David Deming of Harvard University and Stephen Billings of the University of Colorado–Boulder.

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