Exclusion from School and Risk of Serious Violence: A Target Trial Emulation Study

Abstract Evidence for or against a causal effect of school exclusion on offending is inhibited by random allocation not being available on ethical grounds. To advance understanding of the connection between school exclusion and offending—specifically, serious violent offending—we emulate a randomized controlled trial using a target trial framework and a linkage of national education and justice data. Across more than 20,000 matched pairs of excluded and not excluded children exclusion was associated with at least a doubling of risk for perpetrating serious violence (hazard ratio 2.05, 95% CI: 1.83, 2.29) and homicide/near-miss homicide (2.36, 95% CI: 1.04, 5.36) within 12 months of target trial entry. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and policy in education and criminal justice as well as discussing the extent to which the observed relationships can be considered causal.