Use of Force in U.S. Schools: An Analysis
An Analysis
Christine Mehta
May 18, 2018
Corporal Punishment and Use of Restraints
The use of force in schools has long and controversial history. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled in Ingraham v. Wright that corporal punishment is Constitutional, leaving the decision up to the states on whether to allow corporal punishment in public schools. In the 1980s and early 90s, states began to prohibit corporal punishment, but not all did. Nineteen states still permit corporal punishment in schools. In the 2013-2014 school year, corporal punishment was used against children 212, 314 times, according to the data I pulled from the Office of Civil Rights. The second type of force I analyze is the use of restraints. Restraints are primarily used to restrict the movement of a child. However, the use of restraints has been controversial since their inception, with child rights advocates raising concerns about injury and even death resulting from the use of restraints, especially against children with disabilities.
Investigating the Data
Advocates have good reason to be concerned. All states in the country use restraints in vast disproportion against children with disabilities.
Wyoming and Alaska, for example, use restraints almost entirely against children with disabilities. However, as the figure below shows, Vermont tops the list of states using restraints against children overall.
Turning to the use of corporal punishment, it is ony useful to look at rates of corproal punishment for states that legally permit corporal punishment, as they are the only states with data reported on use of the practice. Below, we can see that Mississippi corporally punishes 10 percent of its public school children, followed closely by Arkansas.
Mississippi leads the U.S. in the use of force overall. However, the state primrily uses corporal punishment against school-children, and rarely reports use of restraints. Vermont is the leading state in the use of restraints, and fourth overall in the country despite banning the use of corporal punishment.
In the below graph, compare the use of corporal punishment against children with disabilities against the use of restraints. The use of corporal punishment against children with disabilities is far lower, although it is still used in several states.
Is Corporal Punishment a Net-Widener?
A key question to examine is whether corporal punishment laws encourage the use of force overall? Or put another way, do higher rates of corporal punishment suggest higher rates of use of restraints? The descriptive statistics already suggest no, but using a linear model will help to clarify the descriptive statistics.
The results are not statistically significant. Logging the data does not produce a more linear relationship than the results pictured above. So, although it is clear that states legalizing corporal punishment lead the nation in the highest rates of use of force, the use of corporal punishment does not necessarily lead to greater uses of restraints, or a more punitive environment than states without corporal punishment laws.
| Dependent variable: | |
| rate | |
| rate_corp | -0.050 |
| (0.044) | |
| corp_legal | -0.0004 |
| (0.002) | |
| Constant | 0.006*** |
| (0.001) | |
| Observations | 50 |
| R2 | 0.037 |
| Adjusted R2 | -0.004 |
| Residual Std. Error | 0.005 (df = 47) |
| F Statistic | 0.910 (df = 2; 47) |
| Note: | p<0.1; p<0.05; p<0.01 |
In a second model, I investigated whether there is a positive linear relationship between the rate of corporal punishment and the total use of force (rate). In this second model, with the total use of force rate (total restraints and total use of corporal punishment divided by total enrollment in each state), as the dependent variable, it appears that there is a strong linear relationship in which higher rates of corporal punishment positively correlate with higher rates of use of force overall (although not necessarily higher rates of restraint use).
The relationship between rates of corporal punishment and total use of force rate is statistically significant, and the model accounts for a majority of the data. A unit increase in the total rate of use of force results in an increase of the rate of corporal punishment by 0.95 points.
| Dependent variable: | |
| total_force_rate | |
| rate_corp | 0.950*** |
| (0.041) | |
| Constant | 0.006*** |
| (0.001) | |
| Observations | 50 |
| R2 | 0.920 |
| Adjusted R2 | 0.920 |
| Residual Std. Error | 0.005 (df = 48) |
| F Statistic | 540.000*** (df = 1; 48) |
| Note: | p<0.1; p<0.05; p<0.01 |
Multivariate Linear Regression: What do Americans think of corporal punishment?
Some studies show declining support for corporal punishment over the past 50 years in America. However, the South has remained a stronghold for support for the practice. Using a multivariate linear regression model, I will investigate attitudes amongst different slices of the U.S. population based on where they live, income, race, education, religiosity, party affiiliation, and sex. Data was collected by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey for the years 2000-2016.
What Predicts Support for Corporal Punishment?
Turns out, being Southern, and being African-American, are the two most consistent factors. However, there are not significant differences between men and women when it comes to support for corporal punishment. In model 2 (see below), I’ll add an interaction between race and region, which shows some surprising results.
What if we interact race and region? The below results indicate significant interaction between race and region. The results seem to say that African-Americans in the South support corporal punishment less than in other regions, while whites in the South support it more strongly than whites in other regions. This is an interesting result as one study found that corporal punishment is used disproportionately against African-American boys in schools. This could contribute to declining support for corporal punishment in schools amongst African-American families.
What is the effect of income on support for corporal punishment?
Level 1 indicates an income of less than $20,000 per household, level 2 is $20,000 to $39,9999, level 3 is $40,000 to $59,999, level 4 is $60,000 to $89,999, level 5 is $90,000 to $149,999, and level 6 is above $150,000. The plot below shows little differentiation based on income.
Using model 2, with the interaction between race and region, we see little change. Attitudes appear to hold steady across income groups.
Religion Some studies have shown that those with stronger religious affiliation, particularly Christians support corporal punishment. Level 1 is those with no religious affiliation, and level 4 is those with the highest level of religious affiliation. Here, we see a slight increase in support for corporal punishment amongst those who are most religious, across all racial groups but especially African-Americans in the South.
Conclusion
The use of force in schools in the United States, especially the South, is prevalent. However, based on this analysis, I would conclude that the use of corporal punishment is a stronger indicator for potentially excessive use of force, as overall, rates of force are higher in states that legalize corporal punishment. It is important to recognize that some states, like Vermont, have a high rate of restraint use, but prohibits the use of corporal punishment, while some states, like Wyoming or Colorado, which do not expressly prohibit corporal punishment, do not use corporal punishment at all, and in the case of Colorado also have low rates of restraint use. So, there is significant variation in this data. But the strongest conclusion to draw is that states which expressly permit the use of corporal punishment tend to have higher use of force overall, while states that do not, have a significant amount of variation in their use of restraints.
The Regression Tables
| Dependent variable: | ||
| discipline | ||
| (1) | (2) | |
| factor(region)2 | 0.150*** | -0.043 |
| (0.044) | (0.150) | |
| factor(region)3 | 0.130*** | -0.200 |
| (0.044) | (0.120) | |
| factor(region)4 | 0.280*** | -0.083 |
| (0.041) | (0.100) | |
| raceOther | -0.360*** | -0.580*** |
| (0.056) | (0.130) | |
| raceWhite | -0.340*** | -0.690*** |
| (0.042) | (0.099) | |
| educ | -0.031*** | -0.032*** |
| (0.005) | (0.005) | |
| income | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| (0.011) | (0.011) | |
| partyid | 0.055*** | 0.054*** |
| (0.006) | (0.006) | |
| relig_aff | 0.071*** | 0.070*** |
| (0.014) | (0.014) | |
| factor(region)2:raceOther | 0.120 | |
| (0.190) | ||
| factor(region)3:raceOther | 0.420** | |
| (0.200) | ||
| factor(region)4:raceOther | 0.210 | |
| (0.160) | ||
| factor(region)2:raceWhite | 0.260 | |
| (0.160) | ||
| factor(region)3:raceWhite | 0.390*** | |
| (0.130) | ||
| factor(region)4:raceWhite | 0.470*** | |
| (0.110) | ||
| Constant | 3.000*** | 3.300*** |
| (0.092) | (0.120) | |
| Observations | 3,672 | 3,672 |
| R2 | 0.082 | 0.088 |
| Adjusted R2 | 0.080 | 0.084 |
| Residual Std. Error | 0.820 (df = 3662) | 0.820 (df = 3656) |
| F Statistic | 36.000*** (df = 9; 3662) | 23.000*** (df = 15; 3656) |
| Note: | p<0.1; p<0.05; p<0.01 | |
References
Gershoff, Elizabeth T., Font, Sarah. A, “Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools: Prevalence, Disparities in Use, and Status in State and Federal Policy,” Soc Policy Rep. Author Manuscript; available in PMC 2018 January 12.
Ryan, Joseph B., Peterson, Reece L., Tetrault, George, “Reducing the Use of Seclusion and Restraint in a Day School Program”, Book chapter: “For Our Own Safety”, May 31 2007.
Vogell, Heather, ProPublica, “Violent and Legal: The Shocking Ways School Kids are Being Pinned Down, Isolated Against Their Will”, June 19, 2014. Available online: https://www.propublica.org/article/schools-restraints-seclusions.
Data Sources: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. “Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-2014 School Year” available online: https://ocrdata.ed.gov/
ProPublica, “Journalists: How to Report on Restraints in U.S. Schools” available online: https://www.propublica.org/datastore/dataset/restraint-and-seclusion-data.
University of Chicago, General Social Survey, 2000-2016, available online: http://gss.norc.org/.