Aaron Kupchik
Biographic Data
| ID | 109749 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aaron Kupchik |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aaron |
| FAMILY NAME | Kupchik |
| SIGNATURE | KUPCHIK A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Delaware |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9241-6510 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 206 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
State-Level Variation in Juvenile Decarceration: An Exploratory Analysis
In 1999, 107,493 juveniles were in residential placements; by 2023 this number declined to 29,314, a decrease of 73%. This extraordinary decline in juvenile incarceration—which we refer to as juvenile decarceration—has been reported primarily by justice advocacy groups without rigorous explanation or exploration. In this paper, we provide a state-level exploration in which we consider how relevant characteristics of states relate to their levels …
Bearing the Brunt: The Growth of School Suspension and Resistance to Desegregation
Suspending children out of school is ineffective, harmful, and racially inequitable. Why, then, are millions of children suspended from schools every year? The practice of suspending children out of school, first highlighted on the national stage by the groundbreaking Children’s Defense Fund report, became common as a way to maintain racial oppression in the face of civil rights progress. As schools across the U.S. slowly responded to the 1954 Br…
The Third Administrator? Perceptions of School Resource Officers in Predominantly White Elementary Schools
Purpose: While studies of collective leadership tend to focus on administrators and teachers, schools have other staff present that contribute to leadership in ways that affect the students. We focus on school resource officers (SROs), which have become increasingly common in suburban, predominately White schools and elementary schools because, absent law enforcement responsibilities, little is known about SROs in these settings. We examine perce…
Rethinking School Suspensions
When used too frequently, exclusionary school punishment like out-of-school suspensions are ineffective and harmful. The harms to students are clear, though excessive use of school suspensions also impacts entire schools, students’ families, and communities. Because youth of color are at greater risk of school punishments, these harms disproportionately limit their life opportunities and exacerbate racial inequality. To better understand how and …
Identifying the helpfulness of school climate: Skipping school, cheating on tests, and elements of school climate
Prior research demonstrates the importance of school climate in shaping student behavior but tells us less about which aspects of school climate matter. In this paper we consider how distinct elements of school climate relate to skipping school and cheating on tests. Using survey and administrative data from several statewide Delaware sources, we perform a series of random‐intercept logistic regression models. We find that students in schools per…
Fear of a Black (and Poor) School: Race, Class, and School Safety Policy Preferences
School security and punishment practices have changed throughout the United States since the 1990s. Yet we know little about public support for these practices nor how this support varies when considering different students. The current study uses an experimental approach to assess public preferences for school punishment and security practices and how public opinion relates to student body race and class, as well as attitudes about crime. Result…
Protecting the Flock or Policing the Sheep? Differences in School Resource Officers' Perceptions of Threats by School Racial Composition
Law enforcement officers (often called school resource officers or SROs) are an increasingly common feature in schools across the United States. Although SROs' roles vary across school contexts, there has been little examination of why. One possible explanation is that SROs perceive threats differently in different school contexts and that the racial composition of schools may motivate these differences. To investigate this possibility, this stud…
Historic Lynching and Corporal Punishment in Contemporary Southern Schools
This study examines how corporal punishment in contemporary public schools, a disciplinary practice concentrated in southeastern U.S. states, relates to histories of lynching in the region. Using school-level data from the U.S. Department of Education, we examine these relationships in a series of multi-level regression models. After controlling for numerous school- and county-level factors, we find an increased likelihood of corporal punishment …
Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear
Police officers, armed security guards, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors are common features of the disturbing new landscape at many of today’s high schools. You will also find new and harsher disciplinary practices: zero-tolerance policies, random searches with drug-sniffing dogs, and mandatory suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, despite the fact that school crime and violence have been decreasing nationally for the past two decades. …
Patrick Lopez-Aguado, Stick Together and Come Back Home: Racial Sorting and the Spillover of Carceral Identity
Beyond the Low‐Hanging Fruit: Reducing Racial Inequality by Rethinking School Safety Efforts
In this essay, I examine the problem of excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline. I begin by considering how each of the four most popular Democratic candidates in the presidential primary race as of January 2020 addresses this issue. Excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline harms students, schools, and communities, and it deepens existing racial inequalities. Each candidate promises some remedy, and all represen…
Police Ambassadors: Student-Police Interactions in School and Legal Socialization
The recent influx of police officers into US public schools has reshaped the context and frequency of children's interactions with police. Yet we know little about how the presence of these officers in schools impacts the legal socialization of students, and whether youth of color might be affected or socialized in different ways than white youth. In this study, we analyze data from interviews with school police officers as well as focus group da…
Why and When Do School Resource Officers Engage in School Discipline? The Role of Context in Shaping Disciplinary Involvement
The use of law enforcement in schools raises concerns about impacts on school discipline. Drawing on a large-scale qualitative study of approximately fifty schools across two school districts, this study explores school resource officers’ (SROs’) involvement in school discipline and how it is shaped by their context. We use interview, focus group, and observation data from nearly 200 participants to document variability in the way SROs conceptual…
School Suspensions and Adverse Experiences in Adulthood
The “school-to-prison pipeline” and the negative effects of suspensions, expulsions and school arrests have received increasing national attention recently. Researchers have documented some of the potential harms of these exclusionary school discipline practices for students, including academic difficulties, increased misconduct, and future justice system contact. However, these investigations have been somewhat limited in scope, as they tend to …
The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of Harsh School Punishment
Since the 1990s, K-12 schools across the U.S. have changed in important ways in an effort to maintain safe schools. They have added police officers, surveillance cameras, zero tolerance policies, and other equipment and personnel, while increasingly relying on suspension and other punishments. Unfortunately, we have implemented these practices based on assumptions that they will be effective at maintaining safety and helping youth, not based on e…
The Aftermath of Newtown: More of the Same
In the aftermath of the shocking school shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, United States, politicians and lobbyists seemed to engage in a lively debate about school security. The most visible policy suggestion was the National Rifle Association’s proposal to place armed guards in every school, which was largely derided. Yet the more progressive politicians who ridiculed the N.R.A. offered proposals that likewise …
Discipline and Participation: The Long-Term Effects of Suspension and School Security on the Political and Civic Engagement of Youth
This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health data set to evaluate the long-term influence of school discipline and security on political and civic participation. We find that young adults with a history of school suspension are less likely than others to vote and volunteer in civic activities years later, suggesting that suspension negatively impacts the likelihood that youth engage in future political and civic activitie…
Race, Poverty, and Exclusionary School Security: An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Elementary, Middle, and High Schools
As violence and crime within and around U.S. schools has drawn increased attention to school security, police, surveillance cameras, and other measures have grown commonplace at public schools. Social scientists commonly voice concern that exclusionary security measures are most common in schools attended by poor and non-White students, yet there is little empirical basis for assessing the extent of differential exposure, as we lack research on h…
The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
Racial Politics of Juvenile Justice Policy Support: Juvenile Court Worker Orientations Toward Disproportionate Minority Confinement
Since 1992 there has been a federal mandate to reduce "disproportionate minority contact" (DMC), that is, juvenile and criminal justice system contact of non-White youth at rates exceeding their representation in the population. There is little research on how juvenile court authorities interpret this problem and their responsibility to address it, yet existing studies suggest that racial attitudes of court workers, and the lack of diversity amon…
Accountable to what: Professional orientations towards accountability-based juvenile justice
Formal philosophical and procedural aspects of American juvenile justice have been transformed over the past half-century by `accountability' movements. Yet the meaning of accountability in juvenile justice — specifically who is to be held accountable and to whom — has varied over time making its present application unclear. In this article, we first describe two models of accountability ideals and how each developed. We discuss how traditional r…
Things are tough all over: Race, ethnicity, class and school discipline
Across the USA, schools have dramatically altered how they respond to school crime in recent decades, with a growing police presence and increased levels of punishments. Based on a cultural reproduction approach to understanding how students are socialized within schools, one would expect that these increasingly law-and-order-centered shifts would be disproportionately focused in schools with mostly racial and ethnic minorities and low-income you…
Ethnicity, trust, and acceptance of authority among police officers
School Discipline and Security: Fair for All Students
Prior research finds that racial and ethnic minority students are more likely than White students to receive school punishments, yet little prior research considers students' perceptions of the fairness of school rules and their enforcement. Using data from a nationally representative survey of students, the authors consider whether African American and Latino and Latina students, and particularly males, perceive school safety practices as less f…
Court Context and Discrimination: Exploring Biases across Juvenile and Criminal Courts
Prior research on juvenile and criminal courts argues that because of contextual differences between these two forums, court actors' perceptions of guilt and culpability may be more influenced by racial/ethnic or gender stereotypes in juvenile courts than in criminal courts, regarding the prosecution of adolescents. In this article, the authors explore this differential bias hypothesis, using both quantitative and qualitative data. After comparin…
The New American School: Preparation for post‐industrial discipline
In this article we consider how broad shifts in social relations over the past 30 years have given rise to new social control regimes in US public schools. We argue that the contemporary mechanisms of control engendered by mass incarceration and post‐industrialization have re‐shaped school discipline. To illustrate contemporary discipline in the 'New American School,' we discuss the emergence of police officers and technological surveillance in s…
School Discipline and Security: Fair for All Students
Prior research finds that racial and ethnic minority students are more likely than White students to receive school punishments, yet little prior research considers students' perceptions of the fairness of school rules and their enforcement. Using data from a nationally representative survey of students, the authors consider whether African American and Latino and Latina students, and particularly males, perceive school safety practices as less f…
Things are tough all over: Race, ethnicity, class and school discipline
Across the USA, schools have dramatically altered how they respond to school crime in recent decades, with a growing police presence and increased levels of punishments. Based on a cultural reproduction approach to understanding how students are socialized within schools, one would expect that these increasingly law-and-order-centered shifts would be disproportionately focused in schools with mostly racial and ethnic minorities and low-income you…
Discipline and Participation: The Long-Term Effects of Suspension and School Security on the Political and Civic Engagement of Youth
This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health data set to evaluate the long-term influence of school discipline and security on political and civic participation. We find that young adults with a history of school suspension are less likely than others to vote and volunteer in civic activities years later, suggesting that suspension negatively impacts the likelihood that youth engage in future political and civic activitie…
Protecting the Flock or Policing the Sheep? Differences in School Resource Officers' Perceptions of Threats by School Racial Composition
Law enforcement officers (often called school resource officers or SROs) are an increasingly common feature in schools across the United States. Although SROs' roles vary across school contexts, there has been little examination of why. One possible explanation is that SROs perceive threats differently in different school contexts and that the racial composition of schools may motivate these differences. To investigate this possibility, this stud…
Historic Lynching and Corporal Punishment in Contemporary Southern Schools
This study examines how corporal punishment in contemporary public schools, a disciplinary practice concentrated in southeastern U.S. states, relates to histories of lynching in the region. Using school-level data from the U.S. Department of Education, we examine these relationships in a series of multi-level regression models. After controlling for numerous school- and county-level factors, we find an increased likelihood of corporal punishment …
Police Ambassadors: Student-Police Interactions in School and Legal Socialization
The recent influx of police officers into US public schools has reshaped the context and frequency of children's interactions with police. Yet we know little about how the presence of these officers in schools impacts the legal socialization of students, and whether youth of color might be affected or socialized in different ways than white youth. In this study, we analyze data from interviews with school police officers as well as focus group da…
Why and When Do School Resource Officers Engage in School Discipline? The Role of Context in Shaping Disciplinary Involvement
The use of law enforcement in schools raises concerns about impacts on school discipline. Drawing on a large-scale qualitative study of approximately fifty schools across two school districts, this study explores school resource officers’ (SROs’) involvement in school discipline and how it is shaped by their context. We use interview, focus group, and observation data from nearly 200 participants to document variability in the way SROs conceptual…
Prosecuting Adolescents in Criminal Courts: Criminal or Juvenile Justice
Previous sociological research on courts has studied how court actors mobilize models of justice to shape court proceedings, yet no research examines how court actors approach cases of adolescents who are prosecuted in criminal (adult) courts. These cases raise a potential incongruity between a traditional 20th century "juvenile justice" model that focuses on rehabilitating individuals, and a traditional "criminal justice" model that focuses on p…
Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear
Police officers, armed security guards, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors are common features of the disturbing new landscape at many of today’s high schools. You will also find new and harsher disciplinary practices: zero-tolerance policies, random searches with drug-sniffing dogs, and mandatory suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, despite the fact that school crime and violence have been decreasing nationally for the past two decades. …
Racial Politics of Juvenile Justice Policy Support: Juvenile Court Worker Orientations Toward Disproportionate Minority Confinement
Since 1992 there has been a federal mandate to reduce "disproportionate minority contact" (DMC), that is, juvenile and criminal justice system contact of non-White youth at rates exceeding their representation in the population. There is little research on how juvenile court authorities interpret this problem and their responsibility to address it, yet existing studies suggest that racial attitudes of court workers, and the lack of diversity amon…
Accountable to what: Professional orientations towards accountability-based juvenile justice
Formal philosophical and procedural aspects of American juvenile justice have been transformed over the past half-century by `accountability' movements. Yet the meaning of accountability in juvenile justice — specifically who is to be held accountable and to whom — has varied over time making its present application unclear. In this article, we first describe two models of accountability ideals and how each developed. We discuss how traditional r…
Court Context and Discrimination: Exploring Biases across Juvenile and Criminal Courts
Prior research on juvenile and criminal courts argues that because of contextual differences between these two forums, court actors' perceptions of guilt and culpability may be more influenced by racial/ethnic or gender stereotypes in juvenile courts than in criminal courts, regarding the prosecution of adolescents. In this article, the authors explore this differential bias hypothesis, using both quantitative and qualitative data. After comparin…
Youthfulness Responsibility and Punishment: Admonishing Adolescents in Criminal Court
This article describes interaction in a criminal (adult) court in which adolescents are punished. As a result of the particular set of courtroom dynamics and the youthfulness of the defendants in this court, two potentially conflicting ideas about punishment are expressed concurrently: (1) proportionality, and (2) reduced culpability among youth. I demonstrate how judges talk to adolescent defendants during sentencing in ways that simultaneously …
Ethnicity, trust, and acceptance of authority among police officers
Direct File of Youth to Criminal Court: Understanding the Practical and Theoretical Implications
Beyond the Low‐Hanging Fruit: Reducing Racial Inequality by Rethinking School Safety Efforts
In this essay, I examine the problem of excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline. I begin by considering how each of the four most popular Democratic candidates in the presidential primary race as of January 2020 addresses this issue. Excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline harms students, schools, and communities, and it deepens existing racial inequalities. Each candidate promises some remedy, and all represen…
The Aftermath of Newtown: More of the Same
In the aftermath of the shocking school shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, United States, politicians and lobbyists seemed to engage in a lively debate about school security. The most visible policy suggestion was the National Rifle Association’s proposal to place armed guards in every school, which was largely derided. Yet the more progressive politicians who ridiculed the N.R.A. offered proposals that likewise …
Prosecuting Adolescents in Criminal Courts: Criminal or Juvenile Justice
Previous sociological research on courts has studied how court actors mobilize models of justice to shape court proceedings, yet no research examines how court actors approach cases of adolescents who are prosecuted in criminal (adult) courts. These cases raise a potential incongruity between a traditional 20th century "juvenile justice" model that focuses on rehabilitating individuals, and a traditional "criminal justice" model that focuses on p…
Direct File of Youth to Criminal Court: Understanding the Practical and Theoretical Implications
Youthfulness Responsibility and Punishment: Admonishing Adolescents in Criminal Court
This article describes interaction in a criminal (adult) court in which adolescents are punished. As a result of the particular set of courtroom dynamics and the youthfulness of the defendants in this court, two potentially conflicting ideas about punishment are expressed concurrently: (1) proportionality, and (2) reduced culpability among youth. I demonstrate how judges talk to adolescent defendants during sentencing in ways that simultaneously …
The New American School: Preparation for post‐industrial discipline
In this article we consider how broad shifts in social relations over the past 30 years have given rise to new social control regimes in US public schools. We argue that the contemporary mechanisms of control engendered by mass incarceration and post‐industrialization have re‐shaped school discipline. To illustrate contemporary discipline in the 'New American School,' we discuss the emergence of police officers and technological surveillance in s…
Court Context and Discrimination: Exploring Biases across Juvenile and Criminal Courts
Prior research on juvenile and criminal courts argues that because of contextual differences between these two forums, court actors' perceptions of guilt and culpability may be more influenced by racial/ethnic or gender stereotypes in juvenile courts than in criminal courts, regarding the prosecution of adolescents. In this article, the authors explore this differential bias hypothesis, using both quantitative and qualitative data. After comparin…
School Discipline and Security: Fair for All Students
Prior research finds that racial and ethnic minority students are more likely than White students to receive school punishments, yet little prior research considers students' perceptions of the fairness of school rules and their enforcement. Using data from a nationally representative survey of students, the authors consider whether African American and Latino and Latina students, and particularly males, perceive school safety practices as less f…
Accountable to what: Professional orientations towards accountability-based juvenile justice
Formal philosophical and procedural aspects of American juvenile justice have been transformed over the past half-century by `accountability' movements. Yet the meaning of accountability in juvenile justice — specifically who is to be held accountable and to whom — has varied over time making its present application unclear. In this article, we first describe two models of accountability ideals and how each developed. We discuss how traditional r…
Things are tough all over: Race, ethnicity, class and school discipline
Across the USA, schools have dramatically altered how they respond to school crime in recent decades, with a growing police presence and increased levels of punishments. Based on a cultural reproduction approach to understanding how students are socialized within schools, one would expect that these increasingly law-and-order-centered shifts would be disproportionately focused in schools with mostly racial and ethnic minorities and low-income you…
Ethnicity, trust, and acceptance of authority among police officers
Racial Politics of Juvenile Justice Policy Support: Juvenile Court Worker Orientations Toward Disproportionate Minority Confinement
Since 1992 there has been a federal mandate to reduce "disproportionate minority contact" (DMC), that is, juvenile and criminal justice system contact of non-White youth at rates exceeding their representation in the population. There is little research on how juvenile court authorities interpret this problem and their responsibility to address it, yet existing studies suggest that racial attitudes of court workers, and the lack of diversity amon…
The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
Race, Poverty, and Exclusionary School Security: An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Elementary, Middle, and High Schools
As violence and crime within and around U.S. schools has drawn increased attention to school security, police, surveillance cameras, and other measures have grown commonplace at public schools. Social scientists commonly voice concern that exclusionary security measures are most common in schools attended by poor and non-White students, yet there is little empirical basis for assessing the extent of differential exposure, as we lack research on h…
The Aftermath of Newtown: More of the Same
In the aftermath of the shocking school shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, United States, politicians and lobbyists seemed to engage in a lively debate about school security. The most visible policy suggestion was the National Rifle Association’s proposal to place armed guards in every school, which was largely derided. Yet the more progressive politicians who ridiculed the N.R.A. offered proposals that likewise …
Discipline and Participation: The Long-Term Effects of Suspension and School Security on the Political and Civic Engagement of Youth
This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health data set to evaluate the long-term influence of school discipline and security on political and civic participation. We find that young adults with a history of school suspension are less likely than others to vote and volunteer in civic activities years later, suggesting that suspension negatively impacts the likelihood that youth engage in future political and civic activitie…
The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of Harsh School Punishment
Since the 1990s, K-12 schools across the U.S. have changed in important ways in an effort to maintain safe schools. They have added police officers, surveillance cameras, zero tolerance policies, and other equipment and personnel, while increasingly relying on suspension and other punishments. Unfortunately, we have implemented these practices based on assumptions that they will be effective at maintaining safety and helping youth, not based on e…
School Suspensions and Adverse Experiences in Adulthood
The “school-to-prison pipeline” and the negative effects of suspensions, expulsions and school arrests have received increasing national attention recently. Researchers have documented some of the potential harms of these exclusionary school discipline practices for students, including academic difficulties, increased misconduct, and future justice system contact. However, these investigations have been somewhat limited in scope, as they tend to …
Why and When Do School Resource Officers Engage in School Discipline? The Role of Context in Shaping Disciplinary Involvement
The use of law enforcement in schools raises concerns about impacts on school discipline. Drawing on a large-scale qualitative study of approximately fifty schools across two school districts, this study explores school resource officers’ (SROs’) involvement in school discipline and how it is shaped by their context. We use interview, focus group, and observation data from nearly 200 participants to document variability in the way SROs conceptual…
Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear
Police officers, armed security guards, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors are common features of the disturbing new landscape at many of today’s high schools. You will also find new and harsher disciplinary practices: zero-tolerance policies, random searches with drug-sniffing dogs, and mandatory suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, despite the fact that school crime and violence have been decreasing nationally for the past two decades. …
Patrick Lopez-Aguado, Stick Together and Come Back Home: Racial Sorting and the Spillover of Carceral Identity
Beyond the Low‐Hanging Fruit: Reducing Racial Inequality by Rethinking School Safety Efforts
In this essay, I examine the problem of excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline. I begin by considering how each of the four most popular Democratic candidates in the presidential primary race as of January 2020 addresses this issue. Excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline harms students, schools, and communities, and it deepens existing racial inequalities. Each candidate promises some remedy, and all represen…
Police Ambassadors: Student-Police Interactions in School and Legal Socialization
The recent influx of police officers into US public schools has reshaped the context and frequency of children's interactions with police. Yet we know little about how the presence of these officers in schools impacts the legal socialization of students, and whether youth of color might be affected or socialized in different ways than white youth. In this study, we analyze data from interviews with school police officers as well as focus group da…
Historic Lynching and Corporal Punishment in Contemporary Southern Schools
This study examines how corporal punishment in contemporary public schools, a disciplinary practice concentrated in southeastern U.S. states, relates to histories of lynching in the region. Using school-level data from the U.S. Department of Education, we examine these relationships in a series of multi-level regression models. After controlling for numerous school- and county-level factors, we find an increased likelihood of corporal punishment …
Rethinking School Suspensions
When used too frequently, exclusionary school punishment like out-of-school suspensions are ineffective and harmful. The harms to students are clear, though excessive use of school suspensions also impacts entire schools, students’ families, and communities. Because youth of color are at greater risk of school punishments, these harms disproportionately limit their life opportunities and exacerbate racial inequality. To better understand how and …
Identifying the helpfulness of school climate: Skipping school, cheating on tests, and elements of school climate
Prior research demonstrates the importance of school climate in shaping student behavior but tells us less about which aspects of school climate matter. In this paper we consider how distinct elements of school climate relate to skipping school and cheating on tests. Using survey and administrative data from several statewide Delaware sources, we perform a series of random‐intercept logistic regression models. We find that students in schools per…
Fear of a Black (and Poor) School: Race, Class, and School Safety Policy Preferences
School security and punishment practices have changed throughout the United States since the 1990s. Yet we know little about public support for these practices nor how this support varies when considering different students. The current study uses an experimental approach to assess public preferences for school punishment and security practices and how public opinion relates to student body race and class, as well as attitudes about crime. Result…
Political science (22 works) · Education Discipline and Inequality (21 works) · Criminology (20 works) · Psychology (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (17 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (13 works) · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression (9 works) · Law (9 works)