School discipline and incarceration

In the 2020 to 2021 school year, 3.13.1 students suspended out of school at least once per 1,000 students enrolledEstimandenrollment-weighted mean of district rates (students suspended over students enrolled), bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 2.4 to 4.1n1,025 districtsWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationstudents enrolled in school districts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension count in the least deprived tenth of districts by deprivation rankPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection students per thousand in the least deprived tenth of school districts were suspended out of school at least once. In the most deprived tenth the rate was 23.623.6 students suspended out of school at least once per 1,000 students enrolledEstimandenrollment-weighted mean of district rates (students suspended over students enrolled), bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 20.2 to 27.3n1,022 districtsWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationstudents enrolled in school districts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension count in the most deprived tenth of districts by deprivation rankPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection per thousand. These are counts that districts reported to the Civil Rights Data Collection, which gathers them from every public school district for the Department of Education. A student suspended more than once at a school counts once there, and in-school suspensions are not included.

Suspension rates climb with deprivation, then flatten

Deprivation here is a rank given to places. The Area Deprivation IndexArea Deprivation Index (ADI)A score that ranks neighborhoods by income, education, employment and housing conditions drawn from the American Community Survey. In this book a higher national percentile means a more deprived neighborhood. ranks each census tract nationally from the least to the most deprived,[1] and a district's rank is the mean rank of its tracts, weighted by tract population. The chapter ranks the districts and cuts them into tenths that hold equal numbers of districts. The suspension rate climbs over the first four tenths and then more slowly, to its highest value in decile 88 decile of the district deprivation rank (1 = least deprived, 10 = most)Estimanddecile with the highest enrollment-weighted mean rateWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationdistricts in the dosePeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection. The rate in the most deprived tenth is 7.6 (95% CI 5.5 to 10.6)7.6 ratio of the suspension rate in the most deprived tenth of districts to the rate in the least deprived tenthEstimandratio of pooled rates, bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 5.5 to 10.6n10,257 districtsWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationstudents enrolled in school districts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension countPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection times the rate in the least deprived.

The top of the scale has no clear order. The highest tenth's rate minus the most deprived tenth's rate is +3.2 (95% CI −0.9 to 7.1)+3.2 students suspended per 1,000 enrolled: the highest tenth's rate minus the most deprived tenth's rateEstimanddifference of two enrollment-weighted decile means, bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI −0.9 to 7.1n10,257 districtsWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationstudents enrolled in school districts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension countPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection students per thousand, an interval that includes zero, so the top three tenths cannot be told apart. Deprived districts are not spread evenly across states. Within a state, each ten-point step up the deprivation rank went with 1.9 (95% CI 1.3 to 2.6)1.9 students suspended per 1,000 enrolled, for each ten-point step in the district deprivation rankEstimandenrollment-weighted regression of the district rate on the deprivation rank with state fixed effects, errors clustered by stateInterval95% CI 1.3 to 2.6n10,257 districtsWeightsdistrict enrollmentPopulationstudents enrolled in school districts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension countPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection more students suspended per thousand, so the gradient is not only a difference between states.

Figure 1

Out-of-school suspensions were more common in more deprived districts, at 3.1 per thousand students in the least deprived tenth of districts against 23.6 in the most deprived

Students suspended out of school at least once per 1,000 students enrolled, by the district's deprivation rank (mean Area Deprivation Index national rank of its tracts), one dot per district, 2020-21 school year

Loading data

How we know

The chapter sums the Collection's school counts to districts for the 2020 to 2021 school year. Of the districts that reported, 10,25710,257 school districtsEstimandcount of districts in the dose, funnel and mapn10,257 districtsWeightsnone (full count)Populationdistricts that have a deprivation rank, at least 100 students and a reported suspension countPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection have a deprivation rank, a minimum enrollment and a reported suspension count. Only districts in the book's geography file get a rank, which leaves out charter, regional and single-grade-span districts. Another 3838 school districtsEstimandcount of districts left out of the dose, funnel and map for want of a countWeightsnone (full count)Populationdistricts that have a deprivation rank and at least 100 students but report no suspension countPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection ranked districts report no suspension count, among them New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami-Dade, and their students are in no estimate. Districts report their own counts, and school cells coded as suppressed add nothing to a district's sum. The qualification that changes the reading is the year itself. Remote and hybrid teaching disrupted that school year, so the chapter reads its rates for gradients and gaps, not as typical levels. The report gives every estimate with its interval and sample size.

Inside the same district, Black students were suspended more often

A comparison inside one district removes the differences between districts that a state or county average mixes in. The Collection counts Hispanic students of any race in their own group, so its Black and white students are not Hispanic. The chapter uses the 5,1565,156 school districtsEstimandcount of districts with at least 50 Black and as many white students and a reported count for eachWeightsnone (full count)Populationschool districts (local education agencies) that reported to the Civil Rights Data CollectionPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection reporting districts with a minimum number of Black and of white students and a reported count for each group. Weighting each district's white rate by its Black enrollment gives the rate its Black students would have had at their own district's white rate. Against that benchmark, Black students were suspended at 2.2 (95% CI 2.1 to 2.4)2.2 ratio of Black students suspended to the number expected if each district's Black students were suspended at its white rateEstimandobserved Black suspensions over expected suspensions at the district's white rate, pooled, bootstrap interval over statesInterval95% CI 2.1 to 2.4n5,156 districtsWeightsBlack enrollmentPopulationBlack students enrolled in the 5156 districts with at least 50 Black and as many white students and a reported suspension count for each groupPeriod2020-21 school yearSourceCivil Rights Data Collection times the white rate in the same districts.

Figure 2

The Black suspension rate was higher than the white rate in 20 of the 24 districts with the most Black students

Students suspended out of school at least once per 1,000 enrolled, white and Black students in the same district, the districts with the most Black students among those compared, 2020-21 school year

• White students
• Black students

Show data

Data for The Black suspension rate was higher than the white rate in 20 of the 24 districts with the most Black students

black	district	enrolled_black	enrolled_white	white
20.20	Gwinnett County, GA	57324	34490	12.90
2.10	DeKalb County, GA	55373	10603	1.30
2	Detroit Public Schools Community District, MI	38939	1177	8.50
15.50	Fulton County, GA	38322	23278	7.40
1.70	Atlanta Public Schools, GA	36901	8293	0.600
0.500	Clayton County, GA	36290	906	1.10
20.30	Cobb County, GA	32741	37526	10.20
6	Guilford County Schools, NC	29379	20193	2.30
50.50	East Baton Rouge Parish, LA	28779	4625	20.30
0	District of Columbia Public Schools, DC	28480	8188	0.100
154.9	Mobile County, AL	26493	19746	62.50
8.30	Columbus City School District, OH	24713	10015	4
12.50	Henry County, GA	24436	9752	17.40
45.40	Caddo Parish, LA	22967	10152	16.40
3.90	Cumberland County Schools, NC	22600	13156	1.70
10.40	Montgomery County, AL	22309	2261	2.70
13.60	Cincinnati Public Schools, OH	22032	7849	3.70
27.20	Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, TX	22025	25629	6.80
43.30	Richmond County, GA	21883	4380	30.10
2.50	Cleveland Municipal, OH	21492	5006	1.40
13.70	Fort Bend ISD, TX	21133	11341	4.40
3.60	Savannah-Chatham County, GA	21072	8018	1.60
2.60	Jackson Public School District, MS	19542	260	0
16.30	Birmingham City, AL	19186	403	5

Incarceration describes a different generation, in census tracts

The second part of the chapter leaves school districts for census tracts and for children who grew up decades earlier. The Opportunity Atlas links tax and census records for children born in 1978 to 1983 to the tract where they grew up.[2] Its incarceration measure is the share of children from low-income families who were incarcerated on Census Day in 2010, in their mid-twenties to early thirties. No record links a student in the Collection to a child in the Atlas, so nothing here follows a suspended student into adulthood.

Across tracts, the share was 1.1%1.1% percent of children incarcerated on April 1, 2010Estimandpopulation-weighted mean over tracts (2010 tract population as the weight), bootstrap interval over counties; tenths hold equal numbers of tractsInterval95% CI 1.0% to 1.2%n7,147 tractsWeights2010 census tract populationPopulationchildren raised in low-income families (parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution), races pooled, in tracts that have an incarceration estimate and a deprivation rank, in the least deprived tenth of tractsPeriodchildren born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010SourceOpportunity Atlas in the least deprived tenth and 3.3%3.3% percent of children incarcerated on April 1, 2010Estimandpopulation-weighted mean over tracts (2010 tract population as the weight), bootstrap interval over counties; tenths hold equal numbers of tractsInterval95% CI 3.1% to 3.5%n7,233 tractsWeights2010 census tract populationPopulationchildren raised in low-income families (parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution), races pooled, in tracts that have an incarceration estimate and a deprivation rank, in the most deprived tenth of tractsPeriodchildren born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010SourceOpportunity Atlas in the most deprived, weighted by tract population. The rise is gradual across most of the range and steeper in the most deprived tenth. The deprivation rank is built from data for 2019 to 2023, so it describes the tracts as they are now and not as they were when these children grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Atlas also estimates Black and white children separately, which allows a comparison inside one tract. In the tracts with both estimates, 5.2% (95% CI 5.0% to 5.3%)5.2% percent of children incarcerated on April 1, 2010Estimandpopulation-weighted mean over tracts (2010 tract population as the weight), bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 5.0% to 5.3%n27,795 tractsWeights2010 census tract populationPopulationBlack children raised in low-income families (parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution), in tracts where the Atlas also estimates the other groupPeriodchildren born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010SourceOpportunity AtlasNoteCounting each tract once gives a similar mean. of Black children from low-income families were incarcerated, against 1.9% (95% CI 1.8% to 2.0%)1.9% percent of children incarcerated on April 1, 2010Estimandpopulation-weighted mean over tracts (2010 tract population as the weight), bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 1.8% to 2.0%n27,795 tractsWeights2010 census tract populationPopulationwhite children raised in low-income families (parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution), in tracts where the Atlas also estimates the other groupPeriodchildren born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010SourceOpportunity AtlasNoteCounting each tract once gives a similar mean. of white children. Those tracts are the ones with enough children of both groups, so they are not a sample of all tracts. The gap is present at every level of tract deprivation. Black children in the least deprived tenth of these tracts were incarcerated more often than white children in the most deprived tenth, by 1.2 (95% CI 0.7 to 1.6)1.2 percentage points of incarceration: Black children in the least deprived tenth of tracts minus white children in the most deprived tenthEstimanddifference of two population-weighted tenth means, bootstrap interval over countiesInterval95% CI 0.7 to 1.6n27,690 tractsWeights2010 census tract populationPopulationchildren raised in low-income families (parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution), in tracts where the Atlas estimates both Black and white children and a deprivation rankPeriodchildren born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010SourceOpportunity Atlas points. Chapter 4.3, Race, income and mobility makes the same comparison for adult income.

Figure 3

Incarceration of children from low-income families rose with tract deprivation and was higher for Black than for white children in the same tracts

Percent incarcerated on April 1, 2010, among children from low-income families born 1978 to 1983, by the deprivation of the tract where they grew up, ranked on 2019-2023 data

All children, by deprivationBlack and white children in the same tracts

Black children from low-income families were incarcerated more often than white children from the same tracts at every level of tract deprivation

Percent of children from low-income families incarcerated on April 1, 2010, by tenth of the tract's Area Deprivation Index national rank (built from 2019-2023 data), Black and white children in the same tracts, children born 1978 to 1983

The Black line stays well above the white line in every tenth of tracts, and the Black line in the least deprived tenth is above the white line in the most deprived. Each point is a population-weighted mean over the 27,795 tracts where both groups are estimated, with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over counties.

Show data

Data for Incarceration of children from low-income families rose with tract deprivation and was higher for Black than for white children in the same tracts, Black and white children in the same tracts

conf_high	conf_low	decile	estimate	group	n
4.17	3.40	1	3.80	Black children	2,742
4.80	4.13	2	4.46	Black children	2,796
5.08	4.51	3	4.79	Black children	2,767
5.30	4.75	4	5.02	Black children	2,791
5.61	5.08	5	5.33	Black children	2,756
5.76	5.31	6	5.52	Black children	2,762
5.74	5.32	7	5.52	Black children	2,761
6.03	5.55	8	5.79	Black children	2,776
6.10	5.59	9	5.84	Black children	2,770
6.68	6.06	10	6.37	Black children	2,769
1.41	1.09	1	1.23	White children	2,742
1.61	1.33	2	1.47	White children	2,796
1.75	1.52	3	1.64	White children	2,767
2.03	1.80	4	1.92	White children	2,791
2.23	1.87	5	2.05	White children	2,756
2.29	1.97	6	2.13	White children	2,762
2.39	2.07	7	2.23	White children	2,761
2.42	2.10	8	2.25	White children	2,776
2.45	2.17	9	2.32	White children	2,770
2.81	2.40	10	2.59	White children	2,769

Two gradients that describe different children

Both parts describe how unevenly an outcome falls across places and between groups of children. Suspension rates rise with district deprivation in 2020 to 2021, and incarceration shares rise with tract deprivation for children born in 1978 to 1983. The districts of that school year are not the tracts where those children grew up, and the patterns describe places and groups, not individual children. A higher suspension rate in a deprived district, or for Black students, is consistent with more disruptive conduct, with harsher responses to the same conduct, with both, and with differences in how districts count. These data cannot tell those apart. Bacher-Hicks, Billings and Deming used a redrawing of attendance boundaries in one district and found that students assigned to schools that suspended more were more likely to be arrested and incarcerated as adults.[3] Aizer and Doyle used the random assignment of juvenile cases to judges in one large urban county. They found that juveniles who were incarcerated were less likely to finish high school and more likely to be incarcerated as adults.[4] Both estimates apply to the settings studied, and neither says why rates differ across the districts and tracts in this chapter.

What this cannot tell you

A suspension rate records what districts reported in a pandemic year, without the suppressed cells or the districts that sent no count. The Area Deprivation Index understates deprivation in high-cost cities (Chapter 1.1, What the deprivation index measures), and a district's rank averages over tracts that differ a great deal. The Atlas counts who was incarcerated on one day, not who was ever incarcerated, and it pools girls and boys. A same-tract comparison removes differences between neighborhoods but not differences in family wealth, in schools or in how police and courts treat the children.

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Go deeper

• The report: every estimate with its interval and sample size.
• Tables: every figure of the report as a table.

Reading paths that include this chapter:

• Race and place

Data sources

• Civil Rights Data CollectionCivil Rights Data Collection 2020-21 school year: students suspended out of school, expelled, referred to law enforcement and arrested, and enrollment, by district, with Black and white students separatelyYears: 2020-21 school year · Weights: none (counts reported by districts); district rates weighted by enrollment · License: Public domain (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights)
• Area Deprivation IndexNeighborhood Atlas Area Deprivation Index 2023 (v4.0.1), tract national rank, averaged to districts and to 2010 tractsYears: 2023 release (version 4.0.1; built on ACS 2019-2023) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population within districts; land area within 2010 tracts · License: Free for non-commercial use; cite the Neighborhood Atlas and Kind and Buckingham
• American Community SurveyACS 2019-2023 tract population, used only to weight the tracts of a district when its deprivation rank is averagedYears: 2019-2023 (5-year) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population · License: Public domain (U.S. Census Bureau)
• Opportunity AtlasTract incarceration shares of children from low-income families, children born 1978 to 1983, incarcerated on April 1, 2010, native 2010 tracts, genders pooled, by raceYears: 1978-1983 birth cohorts (2018 release) · Weights: 2010 census tract population · License: Public use (Opportunity Insights and the U.S. Census Bureau)
• USDA Food Access Research Atlas2010 census population of each 2010 tract, used only as the weight for Opportunity Atlas comparisonsYears: 2019 release (population from the 2010 census) · Weights: none (census counts) · License: Public domain (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service)

All data sources

References

1. Kind, Amy J. H.; Buckingham, William R. (2018). Making Neighborhood-Disadvantage Metrics Accessible: The Neighborhood Atlas. New England Journal of Medicine 378(26): 2456-2458. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1802313
2. Chetty, Raj; Friedman, John N.; Hendren, Nathaniel; Jones, Maggie R.; Porter, Sonya R. (2018). The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility. NBER Working Paper 25147. doi:10.3386/w25147
3. Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Billings, Stephen B.; Deming, David J. (2024). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 16(4): 165-193. doi:10.1257/pol.20230052
4. Aizer, Anna; Doyle, Joseph J., Jr. (2015). Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(2): 759-803. doi:10.1093/qje/qjv003

How to cite

@misc{singh2026schooldisciplineandincarceration,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {School discipline and incarceration},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/zipcode/school-discipline-and-incarceration},
  note = {In ZIP Code Destiny. Published 9 October 2026.}
}