University of Hull researchers have contributed to a major new report which finds children who are suspended or excluded from school are nearly two and a half times more likely to become involved in violence and four and a half times more likely to offend compared to those who have not been suspended or excluded.
The report, funded by the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) and produced by the Universities of Hull and Bristol, takes into account a range of factors including measures of behavioural difficulties.
It also shows that children who are absent for 20% or more of the time are also more likely to become involved in violence and offending and backs calls for further support for children at risk of involvement in violence and of being excluded or persistently absent.
Iain Brennan, Professor of Criminology at the University of Hull, said:
“We have known about the link between being out of school – either through skipping school or through exclusion – and later violence for some time through official education and crime records, but these records only pick up police-recorded crime, and have relatively little information about the causes of violence that might have been present before a child began to miss school or was suspended or excluded.
“This study highlights that these children are a vulnerable group in need of high-quality support. Meeting these needs early would likely reduce the need for suspension and exclusion, keep children attending, and potentially reduce later harm to society through violence and other crime.”
The relationship between suspension, exclusion, absence and later offending is a well-established finding supported by other evidence. However, what has previously been harder to establish is whether the act of being absent, suspended or excluded leads to later involvement in crime or violence or whether it is just that excluded, suspended or absent children have other difficulties that make them more likely to offend.
Using the Children of the 90s dataset linked to local police data, the report looks at how suspension, exclusion and persistent absence are related to both officially recorded offending and self-reported violence. Even after taking factors such as child behaviour and family socio-economic circumstances into account, the connection between offending and being out of school – either voluntarily or through exclusion - remains.
Jon Yates, CEO of the Youth Endowment Fund, said: “Suspended children are too often overlooked. We need to focus efforts on supporting children and young people at risk of suspension and exclusion as well as those who already have been.
“There are practical steps that governments in England and Wales can take –strengthening school inspections, improving training and targeting resources – to get the right support to children who need it.”
Read the full report here.