School Exclusion and Youth Custody

Abstract Objective This paper studies whether the disciplinary practice of temporarily excluding children from school causally affects their probability of experiencing incarceration as a young person (youth custody). Methodology We use linked administrative data on the full population of English secondary school leavers between 2010 and 2013. To isolate the causal impact of exclusion from confounding factors, we employ an instrumental variables approach. Our instrument is academization, a reform program that gave schools increased autonomy over disciplinary procedures, thus quasi-randomly affecting a student's probability of being excluded. Results We find that schools significantly increased fixed-term exclusions by approximately 1 percentage point after academization. Our results show that fixed-term exclusions caused a 2.5 percentage point increase in the probability of a student being in youth custody by age 18. Conclusions This finding highlights a direct causal link between a common school disciplinary practice and a severe, long-term negative outcome for young people. It underscores the importance for policymakers and educators to recognize the potential risks associated with disciplinary procedures and the need for alternative, less harmful interventions.