Use of Criminal Justice Language in Personal Narratives of out-of-School Suspensions: Black Students, Caregivers, and Educators

Background/Purpose:

This study describes the use of criminal justice language in Black students’, caregivers’ and educators’ personal narratives of out-of-school suspensions.  Black students are three times more likely to be suspended than White students (U.S. Department of Education, 2014), even though they are no more likely to engage in unsafe or rule breaking behaviors (Gregory, Skiba & Noguera, 2010).  Suspensions are largely ineffective in addressing students’ misbehaviors (Raffaele-Mendez & Knoff, 2003); negatively impact students’ academic achievement (Gregory, et al., 2010); and are associated with juvenile justice system involvement (Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson, 2005).  Further, suspensions can impact adolescents’ self- and social-identity development.  Suspensions send strong messages to students not only by the act of suspension, but also the way it is communicated in language (Miller, Koven & Lin, 2012;  Wertsch, 1991). Any given national language contains multiple social languages which systematically vary in phonology, vocabulary, syntax and usage, and which are associated with particular social groups, for example, peer groups, professional groups, and the criminal justice system.  Through the use of particular social languages, speakers bring the voices of others alongside their own (Bakhtin, 1981). This research examines how and to what extent students, caregivers, and educators incorporate or resist the use of criminal justice language in relating events surrounding out-of-school suspensions. 

Methods:

Thirty one Black students who received out-of-school suspensions, 28 of their caregivers, and 19 educators from a public secondary school participated in audio-recorded, semi-structured individual interviews.  Participants described their experiences of recent suspensions.  Recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim with notes on paralinguistic cues, such as sarcastic tone.  Social language analyses (Strauss, 2005) were conducted through repeated readings of the transcripts and listening to interviews.  Specifically, participants’ talks containing terms associated with the criminal justice system, such as “crime,” and “misdemeanor,” were identified.  Using an inductive approach (Schwandt, 2007), researchers then described how such criminal justice terms were used in participants’ narratives. Peer debriefing and member checks were used to expand and revise initial interpretations.

Results:

A total of 51 criminal justice terms were spontaneously used 474 times by 59 out of 78 participants.  Educators tended to use them to justify their punitive actions and reinforce disciplinary practices.  Caregivers tended to use them to criticize disciplinary practices, for example, by disputing the legality of educators’ punitive actions.  By using criminal justice language, a strong message is sent to students about the connection between their misbehaviors and the criminal justice system.  Indeed, students described their behaviors and experiences of suspensions through the criminal defendant perspective using terms such as “crime” and “prisoner”. 

Conclusions/Implications:

The use of criminal justice language to refer to students’ misbehaviors can be one potential mechanism in the school-to-prison pipeline. Strategies to minimize students’ exposure to criminal justice language and resist their criminalization may include the sensitive use of authoritative language in disciplinary practices and revisions of disciplinary policies.  Further, our analysis of the use of language demonstrates the potential of language as a tool to understand the socialization of vulnerable youth in diverse cultural communities.