Title: Arrest Rates Among K-12 Students Widen When Race, Gender, and
Disability Status Overlap

Description: Having police in schools has been the subject of
considerable debate in recent years. Police can make students and
teachers feel safer. But there are also concerns that students aren't
being treated equally--that some students are being disciplined more
often based on race, gender, or disability. GAO's Jackie Nowicki
discusses our new report on this issue.  

Related work: GAO-24-106294, K-12 Education: Differences in Student
Arrest Rates Widen When Race, Gender, and Disability Status Overlap

Released: July 2024

[Jackie Nowicki:] It is really clear that race, and gender, and
disability status all matter when it comes to things like arrests in
schools.

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for
fact-based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. Having police in
schools has been the subject of considerable debate in recent years. On
the one hand, police can make students and teachers feel safer. On the
other hand, some school districts have reduced their police presence
because of concerns that students aren't being treated equally--that some
students are being targeted or disciplined more often. In a new report,
we looked at arrest rates among K-12 students and found differences when
considering race, gender, and disability. Joining us to talk about this
new report is GAO's Jackie Nowicki, an expert in K-12 education. Thanks
for joining us.

[Jackie Nowicki:] Thanks for having me, Holly.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, Jackie, maybe we can start with--why are police
present in public schools?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So increasingly, police have been present in public
schools for a couple of reasons. One, for a perceived effect on improved
student safety. So, things like school shootings. But we also, you know,
have heard some people say that police in schools can help build
relations with the community and can build partnerships with students as
well.

[Holly Hobbs:] And why would a student be arrested at school?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So there's no national data on that. But we do know
from our site visits to various schools around the country that students
can be arrested for a lot of different reasons. For example, having
weapons, having or selling drugs, or for being in serious fights that
could cause bodily harm to themselves or others.

[Holly Hobbs:] And we looked at arrest rates by race. What did we find?

[Jackie Nowicki:] We found deep disparities nationwide in who gets
arrested. So, for a school year 2017-18, which is the most recent data
that is available to us, we found that Native Hawaiian and Pacific
Islander students and Black students and American Indian, Alaskan Native
students were arrested at rates that are two and three times higher than
white students.

[Holly Hobbs:] We also looked at arrest rates by gender. What do we find
there?

[Jackie Nowicki:] Again, we found deep disparities nationwide with
respect to gender. But race factors in here as well. So, in general, we
found that boys were arrested and referred to police at around twice the
rate of girls. However, again, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander
girls and Black girls had higher arrest rates than most groups of boys.
We have a report issuing later this summer that looks more deeply at
what's going on with the discipline of girls.

[Holly Hobbs:] So we've talked about gender. We've talked about race.
What happens to arrest rates when you factor in a student with a
disability?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So having a disability escalates arrest rates,
especially for students that already experience relatively high rates of
arrest. So, race, gender, and disability all figure prominently when it
comes to arrests. But what we found is that they matter differently for
different groups of students. So, for example, across the board,
students with disabilities are arrested at higher rates than students of
the same gender, who do not have disabilities. But where the nuance
comes in is when you start comparing across racial groups. Then you
start to see things like Black girls without disabilities having higher
arrest rates than white girls with disabilities.

[Holly Hobbs:] Not all schools have a police presence. Was there a
difference in arrest rates when police were there or not there?

[Jackie Nowicki:] There is. So, one of the things that we found from our
regression models is that when a police officer was present regularly in
school, arrest rates for all students in that school doubled compared to
demographically similar schools that didn't have a police presence. So,
that held true even after we controlled for characteristics that are
associated with higher arrest rates. So, things like whether there is a
presence of gang activity in the school, or where the school is located,
or general measures of school disorder.

[Holly Hobbs:] So we've looked at this issue because there's already
concern that students weren't being treated equally based on their race,
or gender, or disability--but is the Department of Education or the
Department of Justice looking into this?

[Jackie Nowicki:] Yes. So, both agencies investigate these things and
both have a shared responsibility for enforcing a variety of federal
Civil Rights laws. In the report, for example, we describe a closed
investigation that Education did where they found a pattern of disparate
disciplinary actions for Black students, even for minor infractions such
as littering.

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[Holly Hobbs:] So, Jackie just told us that arrest rates of students in
K-12 school differ when looking at race, gender, and disability. And
that arrests rates also increased when police were a regular presence in
schools. So, Jackie, what our report describes sounds like a Civil
Rights issue. What's the impact on these students, their schools, their
communities?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So there are consequences, obviously, for individuals,
but also for communities. So, for example, in the Education
investigation we just talked about Education found that Black students
experienced physical harm and lost learning time. There was a Justice
investigation that we cite in the report, which found that in another
school district, they routinely relied on suspensions and referrals to
law enforcement to respond to students who had disability related
behaviors. And DOJ noted that the district could have used proper
behavioral interventions. But instead, what they did was give unfettered
discretion for school staff to call police. And that is where we find an
impact at the community level. That is often referred to as the school
to prison pipeline. And that has been found to push students out of
schools, out of their communities, and into the criminal justice system.
And that obviously has long term effects way beyond an individual
student.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, what more do we think the Department of Education
should be doing about the disparities in arrest rates?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So, Education has an opportunity to improve their data
collection efforts in this area. There is a segment of the K-12
population of students with disabilities for which Education does not
collect data that is broken down by race. And we recommended that
Education do so because our findings so clearly show that race, and
gender, and disability are all key factors in arrests.

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report?

[Jackie Nowicki:] It is really clear from our statistical modeling that
race, and gender, and disability status all matter when it comes to
things like arrests in schools--especially when students have more than
one of those characteristics. But they matter differently for different
groups of kids.

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Jackie Nowicki talking about our new report on
K-12 arrest rates. Thanks for your time, Jackie.

[Jackie Nowicki:] Thanks, Holly.

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
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