The Carceral State of American Schools

Abstract

The fear of violence in schools has compelled school systems to use a variety of authoritarian methods to control students' behavior. This work seeks to understand why these methods of behavioral control are used in some schools but not in others. Using the school survey on crime and safety, the authors explore the extent that the behavioral control strategies at diverse schools are more reminiscent of correctional facilities than institutions of learning. This analysis offers a nuanced view of the carceral elements in schools, where student body diversity is linked to some aspects of the carceral state but not others. Previous research suggests that strategies that seek to nurture the minds of young people are giving way to practices that criminalize school discipline, with the latter more likely to be instituted in poor, majority-minority schools. The present analysis finds that other factors, which are non-diversity related, are associated with authoritarian forms of control in schools, and suggests that all students, not just Black and Latino kids, are experiencing carceral elements.