IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v36y2017i1p11-37.html

Testing the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline

Author

Listed:
  • Emily G. Owens

Abstract

The School‐to‐Prison Pipeline is a social phenomenon where students become formally involved with the criminal justice system as a result of school policies that use law enforcement, rather than discipline, to address behavioral problems. A potentially important part of the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline is the use of sworn School Resource Officers (SROs), but there is little research on the causal effect of hiring these officers on school crime or arrests. Using credibly exogenous variation in the use of SROs generated by federal hiring grants specifically to place law enforcement in schools, I find evidence that law enforcement agencies learn about more crimes in schools upon receipt of a grant, and are more likely to make arrests for those crimes. This primarily affects children under the age of 15. However, I also find evidence that SROs increase school safety, and help law enforcement agencies make arrests for drug crimes occurring on and off school grounds.

Suggested Citation

  • Emily G. Owens, 2017. "Testing the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 11-37, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:36:y:2017:i:1:p:11-37
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.21954
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21954
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.21954?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. Anna Aizer & Joseph J. Doyle, 2015. "Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 759-803.
    3. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Amanda, 2010. "Violent crime, entrepreneurship, and cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 135-149, January.
    4. Lovenheim, Michael F. & Owens, Emily G., 2014. "Does federal financial aid affect college enrollment? Evidence from drug offenders and the Higher Education Act of 1998," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-13.
    5. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    6. Matthew Freedman, 2013. "Targeted Business Incentives and Local Labor Markets," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(2), pages 311-344.
    7. Hjalmarsson, Randi, 2008. "Criminal justice involvement and high school completion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 613-630, March.
    8. Daniel S. Nagin, 2013. "Deterrence: A Review of the Evidence by a Criminologist for Economists," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 83-105, May.
    9. Brown, Ben, 2006. "Understanding and assessing school police officers: A conceptual and methodological comment," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 591-604.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lucy C. Sorensen & Montserrat Avila‐Acosta & John B. Engberg & Shawn D. Bushway, 2023. "The thin blue line in schools: New evidence on school‐based policing across the U.S," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 941-970, September.
    2. Amanda Geller, 2017. "Policing America's Children: Police Contact and Consequences Among Teens in Fragile Families," Working Papers wp18-02-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    3. Amaya, Elard & Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa & Mendolia, Silvia, 2025. "Crime Prevention Programs Improve Citizen's Mental Health: Evidence from Peru," IZA Discussion Papers 17697, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Fisher, Benjamin W. & Fisher, Amy E., 2023. "Criminal justice system contact of students with disabilities by race and ethnicity: Examining the role of school police," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    5. Hjalmarsson, Randi & Machin, Stephen & Pinotti, Paolo, 2024. "Crime and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics,, Elsevier.
    6. Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi, 2025. "Crime and Education," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 17(1), pages 241-260, August.
    7. Andrew Bacher-Hicks & Stephen B. Billings & David J. Deming, 2024. "The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 165-193, November.
    8. Emily K. Weisburst, 2019. "Patrolling Public Schools: The Impact of Funding for School Police on Student Discipline and Long‐term Education Outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 338-365, March.
    9. Vesla M Weaver & Amanda Geller, 2019. "Transforming Police Surveillance of Kids to the Civic Incorporation of Youth," Working Papers wp19-08-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    10. Gottlieb, Aaron & Wilson, Robert, 2019. "The effect of direct and vicarious police contact on the educational achievement of urban teens," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 190-199.
    11. Benjamin W. Fisher & Anthony Petrosino & Hannah Sutherland & Sarah Guckenburg & Trevor Fronius & Ivan Benitez & Kevin Earl, 2023. "School‐based law enforcement strategies to reduce crime, increase perceptions of safety, and improve learning outcomes in primary and secondary schools: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), December.
    12. Robynn Cox & Jamein P. Cunningham, 2021. "Financing The War On Drugs: The Impact Of Law Enforcement Grants On Racial Disparities In Drug Arrests," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 191-224, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hjalmarsson, Randi & Machin, Stephen & Pinotti, Paolo, 2024. "Crime and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics,, Elsevier.
    2. Amanda Agan & Matthew Freedman & Emily Owens, 2021. "Is Your Lawyer a Lemon? Incentives and Selection in the Public Provision of Criminal Defense," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 294-309, May.
    3. Emily K. Weisburst, 2019. "Patrolling Public Schools: The Impact of Funding for School Police on Student Discipline and Long‐term Education Outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 338-365, March.
    4. Mueller-Smith, Michael & Schnepel, Kevin T., 2016. "Avoiding Convictions: Regression Discontinuity Evidence on Court Deferrals for First-Time Drug Offenders," IZA Discussion Papers 10409, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Mueller-Smith, Michael & Schnepel, Kevin T., 2016. "Avoiding Convictions: Regression Discontinuity Evidence on Court Deferrals for First-Time Drug Offenders," Working Papers 2016-16, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    6. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny & Ward, Shannon, 2015. "Bad Behavior: Delinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving," CEPR Discussion Papers 10755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Bastien Michel & Camille Hémet, 2022. "Custodial versus non-custodial sentences: Long-run evidence from an anticipated reform," PSE Working Papers halshs-03899897, HAL.
    8. Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi, 2025. "Crime and Education," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 17(1), pages 241-260, August.
    9. Barnes, Stephen & Beland, Louis-Philippe & Joshi, Swarup & Willage, Barton, 2022. "Staying out of trouble? Effect of high school career counseling on crime," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Grenet, Julien & Grönqvist, Hans & Niknami, Susan, 2024. "The effects of electronic monitoring on offenders and their families," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    11. François Bonnet, 2025. "Less Eligibility, Welfare, and Punishment: The Econometric Evidence," Post-Print halshs-05165960, HAL.
    12. Bennett, Patrick, 2018. "The heterogeneous effects of education on crime: Evidence from Danish administrative twin data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 160-177.
    13. Andrew Garin & Dmitri Koustas & Carl McPherson & Samuel Norris & Matthew Pecenco & Evan K. Rose & Yotam Shem‐Tov & Jeffrey Weaver, 2025. "The Impact of Incarceration on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(2), pages 503-538, March.
    14. Guo, Shiqi & Liang, Pinghan & Xiao, Erte, 2020. "In-group bias in prisons," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 328-340.
    15. Patrick Bayer & Kerwin Kofi Charles & Ellora Derenoncourt, 2025. "Racial Inequality in the Labor Market," Working Papers 343, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    16. Depew, Briggs & Eren, Ozkan, 2016. "Born on the wrong day? School entry age and juvenile crime," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 73-90.
    17. Canepa, Alessandra & Drogo, Federico, 2021. "Wildfire crime, apprehension and social vulnerability in Italy," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    18. Harrison, Anna J. & Jakubowski, Jessica A. & Abram, Karen M. & Teplin, Linda A. & Welty, Leah J., 2020. "Patterns of incarceration among youth after detention: A 16-year longitudinal study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    19. Nicolás Grau & Gonzalo Marivil & Jorge Rivera, 2019. "The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers wp488, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    20. Pallab K. Ghosh & Gary A. Hoover & Zexuan Liu, 2020. "Do State Minimum Wages Affect the Incarceration Rate?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 845-872, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:36:y:2017:i:1:p:11-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.