Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

Oxford Handbooks Online

Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on
Relationships
Debra J. Pepler
The Oxford Handbook of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology
Edited by David P. Farrington, Lila Kazemian, and Alex R. Piquero

Print Publication Date: Jan 2019

Subject: Criminology and Criminal Justice, Life-Course and Developmental Criminology
Online Publication Date: Dec 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190201371.013.20

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter focuses on the role of schools in the pathway to crime. It highlights
research that points to the importance of relationships in development, reviews
theoretical perspectives of relationships and the development of delinquency, and
considers school violence. Next, the chapter focuses on the importance of school
connections and relationships, with a consideration of engagement and bonding with
school, failing academic performance, and dropout rates. School and classroom
organization as well as relationships with teachers and with peers are identified as
potential risk factors that further alienate troubled youth. Conversely, if these systemic
and relationship processes are positive, they can mitigate the risk of moving along the
pathway to crime. To conclude, the chapter revisits the theory and research, with a call
to identify and intervene with the most vulnerable youth and leading to a discussion of
implications for programming and policy.

Keywords: schools, school violence, delinquency, school relationships, school connections, academic performance,
school dropout rates, school organization, classroom organization, troubled youth

SCHOOLS comprise a primary socializing context for children and youth. In many
jurisdictions, schools operate in loco parentis—in the place of parents—while students
are at school. Baumrind (1991) identified two important dimensions of parenting:
providing love and being responsive, as well as guiding and setting expectations and
limits for children’s behaviors. Therefore, if schools are expected to operate in loco
parentis, they have some of the same responsibilities as parents for nurturing and
supporting students, teaching and guiding them, and keeping them safe. Schools have
long served as society’s institution for socialization, not only for academic skills, but
ideally also for the social- emotional skills and moral development that are essential for
healthy development and adaptation across the life span. The critical question at this
point is not whether youths’ lives in school are linked to delinquency, but why it is that
experiences in school can draw
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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

youth into the “schools to prison pipeline” (Christle, Jolivette, and Nelson 2005) or fail to
support their development onto a healthier pathway.

This chapter focuses on the role of schools in the pathway to crime. Section I begins by
highlighting research that points to the importance of relationships in development,
followed by a review of theoretical perspectives of relationships and the development of
delinquency and a consideration of school violence. Section II focuses on the importance
of school connections and relationships, with a consideration of engagement and bonding
with school, failing academic performance, and dropout rates. School and classroom
organization and relationships with teachers and with peers are identified as potential
risk factors that further alienate troubled youth. Conversely, if these systemic and
relationship processes are positive, they can mitigate the risk of moving along the
pathway to crime. The concluding Section III revisits the theory and research, with a call
to identify and intervene with the most vulnerable youth that leads to a discussion of
implications for programming and policy.

I. The Importance of Relationships in

(p. 433)

Development
Over the past 30 years of collaborative research on troubled children, we have
highlighted the nature of aggressive children’s interactions at school (Pepler, Craig, and
Roberts 1998), the peer dynamics in bullying (O’Connell, Pepler, and Craig 1999), the
diverse trajectories in the development of delinquency (Pepler et al. 2010), as well as the
links between the quality of school relationships and health (Pepler, Craig, and Haner
2012; Craig and Pepler 2014). Through our extended program of research we have come
to recognize that relationships at school play a central role in promoting social-emotional
development or, conversely, function to marginalize and alienate children and youth
within this critical socialization context. Children who lag in the development of both
social-emotional and academic skills are at risk of following a troubled pathway, not only
because of their deficits in a wide range of academic and social capacities, but also
because of the ways that others interact with them, further constraining them on a
troubled pathway. This chapter highlights the relational experiences of children and
youth at school as a window into the dynamic mechanisms that shape students’
pathways to crime. The focus on schools is critical for both programming and policy
because experiences in school comprise a central part of the problem and a potential
solution to the school-to-crime pathway (Sander et al. 2012).

A. Theoretical Perspectives of Relationships and the Development of

Delinquency

From a developmental perspective, relationships are important because they comprise

the primary environments in which children grow up (National Scientific Council on the
Developing Child 2004). Numerous theories reviewed in earlier chapters of this book
point to the importance of children’s experiences in relationships within the family, peer

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

group, school, and neighborhood on the development of criminal behavior. For example,
Farrington’s Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential theory (see Chapter 11, this
volume) highlights the importance of these relationships in establishing the long-term
potential for criminal behavior. Thornberry and Krohn (see Chapter 14) take an
interactional perspective on the development of criminal behavior and note that
antisocial behavior develops in the early years through interactional experiences within
the family. As children move into schools, broader social contexts begin to shape their
development. Thornberry and Krohn contend that children shift toward a pathway of
delinquency because of structural adversity or a disadvantaged position within the peer
group, school, and/or neighborhood.

Drawing from these perspectives, this chapter on the influence of the school on the
development of delinquent behavior and the pathway to crime focuses on the reciprocal
(p. 434) relationship processes that unfold within school, constrain positive development,

and foster antisocial development. Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory was among the
first to focus on youths’ relationships. Hirschi contended that when youths have a weak
bond or attachment to the critical social systems in their lives, such as the family, school,
and community, they are less inclined to think and behave in ways that are consistent
with the expectations of these systems. Another way to think about this perspective is
that youths with weak attachments may not be concerned about disappointing the adults
in their lives; hence, they may not resist the temptation to engage in antisocial
opportunities when they arise (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990). The social development
model extends social control theory by highlighting that social bonds develop when
children and youth are raised with opportunities for positive interactions, experiences
for positive involvement and associations, adequate skills for social interactions, and
reinforcements for positive behaviors (Catalano and Hawkins 1996). When these positive
relationship processes are inadequate, children are at risk for developing along a
troubled pathway to crime. These theoretical models highlight that it is experiences with
and in relationships that enable and motivate youth to develop along a positive pathway
or fail to support positive youth development, leaving the youth to drift onto a deviant
pathway.

These theoretical perspectives are consistent with the emerging view that “relationships
are the ‘active ingredients’ of the environment’s influence on healthy human
development” (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2004, p. 1). The
Search Institute has recently extended its focus beyond individual assets of children and
youth to include the relationships that promote their healthy development. They have
identified developmental relationships as those that support children and youth to
achieve the psychosocial capacities that underlie success in school and in life (Search
Institute 2014). They note that developmental relationships can be provided by parents
and other family members, school staff, peers, and caring adults in communities. In our
own research and knowledge mobilization, we have been focusing on the importance of
healthy relationships, which we define as those that provide children with a sense of
security and stability, a sense of being valued and belonging, and support and guidance
to develop essential skills and understanding. In addition, healthy relationships do not

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

create stress for children and youth but help to buffer the stresses they inevitably
encounter (Pepler, Craig, and Haner 2012; Craig and Pepler 2014). Both theory and
research on the development of delinquency highlight the importance of youths’
relationships and point to the importance of relationships in school—a primary
developmental context for children and youth.

In qualitative research with male and female offenders and non-offenders, Skrzypiec
(2013) studied youths’ perceptions of why adolescents commit crimes. She found that
both prosocial and delinquent youths provided explanations about the motivation to
commit crime which were aligned with the “big three” criminological theories suggested
by Cullen and Agnew (2003): control, differential association, and strain theories.
Skrzypiec (2013) noted that youths, themselves, have insightful perceptions of the causes
of crime and might also have insights into effective strategies for programming and
policy to prevent or intervene to support children and adolescents on a pathway to crime.

(p. 435) B. School Violence

Attention to youth violence and violence in schools has increased markedly over the past
two decades. In 1994, the American Psychological Association published a seminal
volume entitled Reason to Hope: A Psychosocial Perspective on Violence and Youth. The
book provided both developmental and sociocultural perspectives on the causes of youth
violence, with a consideration of vulnerable youth and the influence of broader societal
factors such as the media, availability of guns, and gangs on youth violence. The
perspective of hope arises from reports on the promising, evidence-based prevention and
intervention strategies that shift youth from a pathway to crime. The mid-1990s
represented a high point for youth violence, and it has been decreasing since (Centers
for Disease Control, 2015).

Concern for school violence skyrocketed after the Columbine High School shootings in
1999, which have been followed by other school shootings in the United States and
elsewhere. In 2002, the Journal of School Violence was launched, encouraging research,
commentaries, position statements, and knowledge translation on this critical social
issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control, rates of violent crimes have dropped
substantially from 1995 to 2011 for both male and female youth. Nevertheless, violence
perpetrated at school raises concerns not only for the learning environment but also for
the well-being and safety of both students and staff. The FBI has studied youths who
perpetrated school shootings within the United States (Federal Bureau of Investigation,
2015). It found that 75 percent of these youths felt bullied, persecuted, and/or
threatened by others, pointing to a breakdown in relationships within the school system.

These extreme acts of violence are, however, very rare, and the majority of violent
episodes at school do not result in death or serious injury, even though they can be
physically, psychologically, and socially harmful. The probability of a violent act depends
not only on student characteristics but also on the contexts within and outside of school,
including the media and Internet, which have the potential to influence youths’ attitudes

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

and behaviors. A study by Brezina and colleagues revealed variability among schools in
the overall levels of anger and aggression among the students (Brezina, Piquero, and
Mazerolle 2001). Consistent with Agnew’s macro-level strain theory, they noted that
when the student population is relatively high in anger, there are more opportunities for
conflict and aggression between individual students. The interaction of diverse individual
characteristics and a range of systemic processes experienced by students underlies the
propensity for school violence.

C. How Many Youth Become Delinquent and Why?

Concerns for the quality of youths’ relationships and the development of delinquency
were confirmed by our analyses of the trajectories in delinquency through adolescence
(Pepler et al. 2010). We explored the diverse developmental pathways of delinquency
with
eight waves of data over seven years and examined a range of individual (p. 436) and
relationship factors that differentiated youths on the diverse trajectories. When we
analyzed girls and boys together, we found that the youths’ trajectories were best
represented by a five-class model: 60 percent of the youths rarely reported delinquency
from age 10 to 17; 27.7 percent reported low initial levels with moderate levels of
delinquency developing over time; 6 percent of youths fell in the late-onset group and
reported initially low and rising levels of delinquency; and 5 percent were in the early-
onset group and reported moderate initial levels, which increased and then began to
decrease after age 14. A small group of only boys (1.3 percent), whom we identified as
chronic, reported high initial levels of delinquency that increased from age 10 to 17.

When we compared trajectory groups we found that both boys and girls involved in even
moderate levels of delinquency generally differed from the low-delinquency group on
individual and relationship factors. The youth engaged in delinquency used more
substances and had higher levels of internalizing problems compared to those
consistently low in delinquency. They also had strained relationships with their parents,
with lower monitoring (a proxy for poor communication; Stattin and Kerr 2000) and
higher conflict with parents than the low-delinquency youth. The delinquent boys and
girls were more likely to have friends who also reported delinquency and were more
susceptible to negative peer pressure than low-delinquency youth. Few differences
emerged between girls and boys in the nature of delinquent behaviors and in the
associated problems with parents and peers. The trajectories were consistent with the
age–crime curves that show a general decline in delinquency from early adolescence to
early adulthood (Le and Stockdale 2011). Although there are general trends in the
development of delinquency, our data highlight the heterogeneity in developmental
pathways. This research suggests that the development of delinquency is a dynamic
process that occurs in adolescence when some youth have strained relationships that fail
to provide important developmental opportunities and may cause them to drift to the
margins of social systems, associate with similar peers, and engage in antisocial
behavior.

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

II. The Importance of School Connections and

Relationships
A. Engagement with Schools

There is mounting evidence that students’ attachment to teachers and their engagement
or connection with schools are related not only to their academic achievement but also to
their social, moral, and behavioral development (Kuperminc, Leadbeater, and Blatt 2001).
It is important to recognize, however, that the development of bonds with school (p. 437)
and the links between school bonds and delinquency are dynamic and transactional. In
other words, delinquency may be both the cause and consequence of the weakening of
attachment or bonds to school (Hoffman, Erickson, and Spence 2013). When students are
disengaged at school, their detached orientation may foster strained relationships with
school staff and peers alike. Conversely, if school staff and peers are not supportive,
accepting, and including of youth who are struggling, the experiences of being rejected
may underlie youths’ migration to the margins of the school social context and promote
their disengagement. According to Hirschfeld and Gasper (2011), the process of
disengagement from school, which is linked to the development of delinquency, may
start at the moment of school entry and comprise the primary developmental process
that underlies school failure and dropout.

At school entry, there is a group of children who are unprepared for the academic,
behavioral, and social demands in the school setting and consequently vulnerable to
experiencing problems and not engaging with school. Based on inadequate socialization
within the family and/or daycare context, these children enter the school system with an
inability to regulate their behaviors and emotions, poorly developed executive functions,
a lack of social skills, weak moral understanding and attitudes, and mental health
problems (e.g., anxiety, oppositional behavior). As Dodge and colleagues (2009) note, the
combination of difficult child factors and adverse social contexts sets up a developmental
cascade of failure in family, peer, and school contexts and risk of movement into
antisocial and illegal behaviors, where alternate reinforcement processes attract the
youth into crime. For children with these initial vulnerabilities, society depends on
schools to be the socializing institution and to pick up where parents left off or were
unable to establish a foundation for adaptive regulation and learning.

Experiences in the early school years are important because this is the time when school
commitment and connectedness is generally highest. Jang (1999) found a developmental
trend in school commitment, measured by reports of studying/homework, attachment to
school/teachers, and grades. Prior to high school (ages 12 and 13), students reported
more commitment to school than during high school. With Canadian data, we measured
the quality of school connectedness and relationships using the response to three
statements: the rules in this school are fair; our school is a nice place to be; and I feel I
belong at this school (Pepler et al. 2012). We found that youths’ reports of the quality of
school relationships were related to all outcomes in the emotional health and academic

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

domains. We also found a consistent developmental decline in the quality of relationships

with schools for both boys and girls from grade 6 to grade 10. Jang (1999) noted that
schools become more important as youth move into adolescence, when parental
influences decline and peer influences increase. Schools can only perform this role and
support academic success and school completion if students are engaged and have
positive relationships with school staff and peers.

In a recent longitudinal study, Hirschfeld and Gasper (2011) measured three forms of
school engagement: behavioral (participation in academic and extracurricular activities),
emotional (positive thoughts and emotions about school activities and those in (p. 438)
school), and cognitive (willingness to engage with the cognitive challenges of the
academic curriculum). They were interested in testing whether the relationship between
school engagement and misconduct is bidirectional. In other words, they were interested
in seeing whether delinquency places students at risk to become disengaged from school
or whether being disengaged from school places youth at risk for delinquency. They
found that the students who were emotionally and behaviorally engaged at school were
less delinquent. Conversely, the students who were delinquent became less cognitively
engaged with school.

The “school to prison pipeline” was identified by Christle, Jolivette, and Nelson (2005)
as the process through which students become disengaged from school and drift into
delinquency and crime. At the school level, Christle and colleagues found that school-
level characteristics such as supportive leadership, dedicated and collegial staff, and
school-wide behavior management were important protective factors. In an analysis of
national data from the United States, Gottfredson and colleagues (2005) found lower
rates of student delinquency and student victimization in the schools where students
reported greater fairness and clarity of rules. Of note, the psychosocial climate, as
measured by teacher reports of organizational focus, morale, planning, and
administrative leadership was unrelated to students’ reports of delinquency and
victimization. The school-level factors that were linked to delinquency in this study fall
into the two dimensions of Baumrind’s (1991) model of parenting: love and responsivity,
as well as guiding and setting expectations and limits for students’ behaviors within the
school.

When weak school engagement is combined with a school system that does not meet
vulnerable students’ developmental needs, the process of failure is set into motion. In
many countries, there is a strong emphasis within education to focus almost exclusively
on literacy, numeracy, and science knowledge to bolster rankings on the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA). Teachers, schools, school systems, and countries are measured and
judged on students’ performance in these academic areas. This concentrated academic
focus contrasts with the principle of educating the whole child and has led to a strong
call for a renewed focus on children and youths’ social-emotional development in school
(Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2015).

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

The challenge for students, especially those lacking a strong foundation at home, is that
developing social-emotional capacity is much more difficult than developing numeracy
and literacy. In learning to work with numbers or read letters, there are consistent 1:1
patterns that can be recognized, acquired, and repeated: 2 + 2 always equals 4 and b-o-
o- k always represents book. In learning how to get along with others, diverse skills and
strategies are required for relationships with familiar and unfamiliar adults and peers;
furthermore, an approach that is generally successful with a specific individual may not
be successful on a given day because of the circumstances (e.g., the teacher is highly
stressed). Many children acquire complex social-emotional skills through naturally
occurring learning opportunities in the early years; others require specific supports for
social-emotional development to enable them to succeed at school and beyond.

(p. 439) B. Schools, Academic Performance, and Dropout

Students who perform well in academic subjects move through the school years relatively
smoothly. In contrast, students who struggle because they lack the regulation capacity to
concentrate, have had limited opportunities to learn, or have a learning disability and/or
mental health challenges; as a result they increasingly fall behind. A critical question is
why does failure in school lead to marginalization and a move into delinquency? In a
foundational study, Ward and Tittle (1994) tested two competing hypotheses about why
IQ and delinquency are linked. The first, “school performance” hypothesis was that
students’ IQ was related to their inability to perform to the standards expected of middle-
class mainstream students, which fosters negative attitudes about school and, in turn,
leads to delinquency. The second, “school reaction” hypothesis was that students’ IQ was
related to their experiences of being streamed into less challenging classrooms, resulting
in lowered self-esteem, which leads to delinquency. The analyses showed that when
assessed separately, both these mechanisms linking IQ and delinquency were upheld by
the data; however, when they were tested in an integrated model, the school
performance hypothesis was upheld because school reaction was linked to IQ through
school performance. The authors acknowledge that the associations among IQ, school
performance, school bonding, and delinquency are complex, but this research points to
the importance of supporting and engaging every student to achieve optimal
performance and satisfaction within the school setting.

There has been a continued focus on poor school achievement and links to delinquency.
In a recent paper, Hoffman, Erickson, and Spence (2013) assessed the link between
academic performance and delinquent behavior by building on Thornberry and Krohn’s
interactional theory (see Chapter 14). With longitudinal analyses, they examined
reciprocal associations among delinquent behavior, school attachment, and academic
achievement. They found that academic achievement was associated with less delinquent
behavior over time, as well as with higher school attachment. When examined from the
reciprocal direction, delinquency was only linked to lower school attachment and did not
relate directly to change in academic achievement. They suggest that a common cause,
self-regulation, may account for the well-established link between delinquency and
subsequent problems in school performance. The lack of self-regulation may also underlie

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

youths’ susceptibility to negative influences in their relationships with peers and in the
broader community context.

Values may also play a role in the link between academic performance and delinquency.
Felson and colleagues (1994) found that students who value academic performance are
also those who tend to have negative values against interpersonal violence, theft,
vandalism, and school delinquency. They suggest that the groups who value various
forms of delinquency are likely to be the same groups that reject other positive values of
society, such as doing well in school.

The process of disengaging from school cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally is

prolonged. In a study examining engagement, delinquency, and school dropout, Wang
(p. 440) and Fredricks (2014) found that dropping out of school is predicted by lower

behavioral and emotional engagement and higher problem behaviors. The result of this
process is that the most at-risk and vulnerable youth in society become truant and
eventually drop out of the school system. As indicated above, the process of
disengagement that leads to truancy and dropout is dynamic, bi-directional, and
embedded in the relationships that youth experience in school. In a qualitative study of
early school leavers, Ferguson and colleagues (2005) found that relationships figured
prominently in students’ perceptions of why they had dropped out of school. Many
youths who had dropped out reported that they received both direct and indirect
messages from principals, vice-principals, teachers, and guidance counselors indicating
that they were not wanted in the school system. Relationships with other students were
also strained and were perceived as contributing to the process of disengagement from
school.
According to Ferguson and colleagues, “young people described troubled school cultures
due to severe and ongoing bullying and violence. When these issues were not clearly and
swiftly addressed, students began the process of skipping school, detentions,
suspensions and early leaving” (2005, p. 27). In this research, relationships were also
identified as part of the protective processes that kept youth engaged with school,
including caring and supportive teachers and caring, flexible, and proactive school
climates.

In a study of the trajectories of school engagement and school dropout, Janosz and
colleagues (2008) found that that students who experienced a rapid decrease in school
engagement over the high school years, as well as those who reported low levels of
school engagement at the beginning of adolescence, were more likely to drop out. There
was heterogeneity among the students on the unstable engagement trajectories;
however, the majority of students on these trajectories had more psychosocial and
academic difficulties than those following a steady engagement path. Although boys
dropped out of school at a higher rate than girls, Janosz and colleagues found that when
girls follow an unstable school engagement trajectory, they are at as much risk of
dropping out of schools as boys. In a subsequent study, Archambault et al. (2009)
confirmed the importance of student disengagement as a factor that predicts dropout
above and beyond the effects of individual and family risk factors. They found that the

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

behavioral component of disengagement, compliance and attendance, predicted dropout

better than students’ cognitive or affective engagement with school. Archambault and
colleagues

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

noted that behaviors such as impoliteness, truancy, and absenteeism are related to
alienation from school. Furthermore, when students are punished for these behaviors,
they are further alienated, with the end result being a high probability of school dropout.

C. School and Classroom Organization

Students’ experiences at school are shaped by both the quality of the interactions and the
general organization of the school and classroom environments. At the classroom level,
Christle and colleagues (2005) found that effective academic instruction was related to a
lower level of delinquency. Similarly, Gottfredson (2001) highlighted many (p. 441)
classroom- and school-based factors related to delinquency including a general climate of
emotional support and classroom management. At the school level, she identified a strong
academic mission and administrative leadership as important in preventing the move to
delinquency and maintaining school engagement. Gottfredson also noted that schools can
provide opportunities for students to drift into delinquency if drugs and alcohol are
available and weapons are present.

Classroom climate was highlighted in a longitudinal study by Sprott (2004). She found
that young people who behaved violently during early adolescence had often been in
elementary school classrooms with limited emotional support from teachers and
classmates. In a subsequent study, Sprott, Jenkins, and Doob (2005) found that students’
strong attachment to school was associated with less violent offending in early
adolescence. They concluded that school relationships may be protective if they are able
to engage students for whom relationships within the family are strained.

School organization can serve a preventive function by mitigating the influences of

deviant peer relationships. Zimmerman and Rees (2014) found that schools with strict
policies regarding delinquency had lower levels of problem behaviors within the school.
Students in schools with strict policies were less exposed to delinquent peers and
thereby less susceptible to negative peer influences for smoking, drinking, and fighting.
Zimmerman and colleagues suggested that school policies can serve to prevent crime by
reducing the effects of associating with delinquent peers. Maimon, Antonaccio, and
French (2012) found similar results regarding structured school environments with high
and consistent levels of sanctions. In their research, however, the strict sanctions
reduced delinquency primarily among those students who were weak in thoughtfully
reflective decision-making. In other words, youths who have limited cognitive capacities
fare better in schools where the expectations and rules are clear and sanctions are
consistently applied. Maimon and colleagues postulated that students with weak
cognitive skills may fare better in highly structured school environments with consistent
sanctioning because the increased social control and sanctions serve as disincentives and
limit their perspectives of available delinquent responses.

Research by Danbrook, Hymel, and Waterhouse (2012) highlighted the supportive

function of positive relationships within the school context. They tested three aspects of
school climate: school involvement, perceived peer support, and perceived adult support.

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

They found that perceived peer and adult support, but not school involvement,
moderated the relationship between victimization and school violence. Specifically,
highly victimized students were more likely to engage in physical violence as their
perceived levels of peer and adult support at school diminished. The quality of
relationships was particularly important with regard to weapon carrying: highly
victimized students were more likely to report bringing weapons to school when they had
reported low support from other students. Conversely, students who reported low levels
of victimization and high levels of adult support were less likely to bring weapons to
school. Danbrook and colleagues (2012) concluded that support from both adults and
peers in the school context appeared to mitigate the link between victimization and
school violence. They noted that for
marginalized and victimized students, high-quality (p. 442) school relationships can
reduce the likelihood of high-risk behaviors for vulnerable students, including the use of
physical aggression and carrying weapons to protect themselves from the ongoing abuse
of their peers.

D. Relationships with Teachers

In their landmark longitudinal study, Werner and Smith (1982) examined the factors that
enabled children to thrive in spite of many challenges in their lives. They found that
those children who thrived had positive relationships with their teachers. Their teachers
were not only supportive academically but also provided caring, compassionate support
and served as positive role models for the vulnerable children. Werner and Smith’s
research reveals that the teachers were operating in loco parentis by providing both
dimensions of Baumrind’s model: care and guidance. The challenge in providing these
two dimensions of support may be overwhelming for teachers when dealing with
undersocialized students.

Our observational research of aggressive elementary school students revealed this

challenge in that these students are most likely to be involved in disruptive and bullying
behaviors in the classroom (Atlas and Pepler 1998). Without a high level of awareness
about the needs of specific children and mindfulness about one’s own responses to
troubled children, teachers may experience difficulties engaging and supporting the
students who are most disruptive and defiant. As Boyce and colleagues (2012) have
shown, teachers’ child-centered teaching practices mitigate the psychosocial difficulties
of children who are vulnerable because of their social position within a classroom. When
teachers were able to create supportive classroom climates for the most vulnerable
children, the deleterious effects of being marginalized within the peer social structure
were mitigated, leading Boyce and colleagues to call for “more supportive, egalitarian,
and generous social environments” (2012, p. 17171).

Farmer, Lines, and Hamm (2011) reintroduced Robert Cairns’s concept of the teacher
having an “invisible hand” as a way to describe teachers’ subtle influences on their
students’ academic learning, emotional and behavioral development, and peer
relationships. They note that teachers have two essential roles in the classroom. First,

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

teachers are responsible for promoting learning, reinforcing appropriate behaviors, and

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

correcting inappropriate behaviors. Their second role relates to students’ social

interactions and positive peer dynamics, which they can shape by managing classroom
activities and organizing students’ groupings to include marginalized students and ensure
that groupings mitigate deviant peer processes. We have described this responsibility as
social architecture—organizing children’s peer groupings to promote optimal peer
dynamics (Pepler 2006).

The World Health Organization’s Health Behaviors of School-Aged Children survey

assesses the quality of students’ relationships with their teachers with five statements: I
feel that my teachers care about me as a person; I feel that my teachers accept me as I
am; I feel a lot of trust in my teachers; My teachers are interested in me as a student; and
My (p. 443) teachers listen to how I would like to do things. The proportion of students
who report high-quality relationships with their teachers decreases from the middle
school to high school years (Pepler et al. 2012); therefore, it is important that high-
quality teacher–student relationships are established in the early school years. When
students have a positive relationship with their teachers, they can thrive throughout their
school careers. For aggressive children, however, a strained relationship with teachers
starts at school entry and increases over the course of the school year (Doumen et al.
2008).
Teachers’ low preference for students relates not only to declining grades but also to
increased loneliness (Mercer and DeRosier 2008). Therefore, a conflictual teacher–
student relationship may exacerbate vulnerable children’s behavioral and emotional
adjustment problems and initiate the process of alienation and marginalization from both
staff and peers within the school context.

The quality of the teacher–student relationship arises, as with other relationships,

through bi-directional processes. Liljeberg and colleagues (2011) studied the links
between teacher–student relationships and delinquency through a longitudinal study.
Students’ attachment was measured by their interpersonal relations with school staff,
including the feeling of being supported and understood by them. They also measured
students’ defiance of teachers in terms of hostile attitudes toward teachers. They found
reciprocal effects between delinquency and general school connectedness for both boys
and girls. In terms of the teacher–student relationships, students who had poor
attachments to their teachers at Time 1 were more likely to be delinquent at Time 2.
Conversely, students who were high on delinquency at Time 1 were more likely to have
poor teacher attachment at Time 2. Poor teacher attachment was more strongly
associated with delinquency for boys than for girls.

The researchers analyzed further to determine whether defiance toward teachers

underlies the link between delinquent behavior at Time 1 and poor teacher attachment at
Time 2. They found that when defiance toward teachers was entered into the model
testing the links between teacher attachment and delinquency, delinquency no longer
predicted worse teacher attachment over time, whereas teacher defiance did. Liljeberg
and colleagues (2011) discussed gender differences in the links between attachment and
delinquency. For boys, it appears that the likelihood of increasing in delinquency is

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

related to all aspects of school bonding—the connectedness to school, academic

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

engagement, and the quality of relationships with teachers. For girls, it was the quality of
relationships with teachers that most strongly predicted the likelihood to engage in
delinquency.

The quality of the teacher–student relationship was one focus of Brendgen and
colleagues’ (2011) research on gene by environment interactions. They assessed the
effects of this important relationship for children with a genetic vulnerability to be
aggressive. They found the expected genetic effects accounting for a significant
proportion of the variance in children’s aggressive behaviors. The genetic effects,
however, were exacerbated when the children had a high-conflict and distant
relationship with their teachers. Conversely, the genetic effects on children’s aggressive
behaviors were reduced for children who had a close and low-conflict relationship with
their
teachers. (p. 444) Consistent with Boyce and colleagues’ (2012) research, this study
indicates that high-quality teacher–student relationships may be especially important for
the most vulnerable students.

Research points to the important impact that teachers can have on children’s
developmental pathway into problem behavior and delinquency. The evidence points to
the importance of Baumrind’s two parenting dimensions—warmth and responsivity—as
well as guidance and setting expectations and limits. When teachers are able to foster
warm relationships with their students (particularly those at risk for aggressive behavior
problems) and are able to create and manage a classroom context that promotes positive
behaviors and engagement, then students are able to flourish. The paradox is that these
two dimensions of the teacher–student relationship are most important for those
students who are most vulnerable for moving onto a pathway to crime and these are the
students who are often least likable and most troublesome in the classroom. Without
warm, reflective, and effective teachers, vulnerable students are at risk of becoming
increasingly alienated and marginalized within the classroom and broader school
context.

E. Relationships with Peers

Peer relationships also play an important role in exacerbating or mitigating children’s

risk of moving into delinquency and crime. In their seminal review of peer influences in
two interventions and a summer program, Dishion, McCord, and Poulin (1999)
concluded that high-risk youth were susceptible to “deviancy training” within their peer
groups and that friendships among deviant peers predicted increases in delinquency,
substance use, violence, and maladjustment in adulthood. They highlighted two
mechanisms within deviancy training that may propel youth along a troubled pathway:
first, when youth are reinforced for their deviant behavior by peers who laugh or pay
attention, it is likely to increase the problem behavior; second, high-risk youths value the
deviancy training and become increasingly motivated to engage in problem behavior.

The peer processes at school that potentially contribute to a pathway to crime occur
through both commission and omission. Our observations of bullying at school provide
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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

evidence for the behaviors committed within peer dynamics that promote deviant peer

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

processes. We found that peers were present in 85 percent of bullying episodes and they
spent 75 percent of the time paying attention to the child who is bullying (Craig and
Pepler 1997). They played an active role in exacerbating the aggression: when a peer
joined in bullying, the child who had initiated the bullying became increasingly
aggressive and aroused (O’Connell, Pepler, and Craig 1999). Furthermore, the deviant
peer influences were bi-directional: bystanders were much more likely to join the bullying
when incited to do so by the child who had initiated the episode (O’Connell et al. 1999).

Another problem is that peers may respond negatively toward aggressive children. Our
observations of aggressive children on the school playground indicated that they (p. 445)
have higher rates of verbal and physical aggression than nonaggressive children (Pepler,
Craig, and Roberts 1998). Since 22 percent of aggressive behaviors elicit an aggressive
response from peers, it follows that aggressive children are on the receiving end of
aggressive behaviors more often than their nonaggressive peers. In their research on
young elementary school children, Brendgen and colleagues (2011) found that the
likelihood of being victimized by peers was in part related to the genetic vulnerability for
aggressive behavior. In other words, those children who have a genetic predisposition to
be aggressive are more vulnerable to being bullied by their peers.

Within peer groups at school, there may also be natural processes of omission that
contribute to aggressive children’s drifting to the margins and becoming alienated. Given
aggressive children’s dysregulated interactional style, other children may not actively
choose to play with them. Through our observations in elementary schools, we
discovered that aggressive children have less predictable interaction styles than their
non-aggressive peers (Pepler et al. 1998). They exhibit more mixed behaviors in which
they initiate an aggressive (or prosocial) behavior, fail to wait for the peer to respond,
and immediately follow with a prosocial (or aggressive) behavior directed at a peer.
Therefore, classmates may be similar to teachers in finding aggressive children difficult
to interact with and challenging to have in the classroom. When aggressive children are
marginalized in the classroom or peer group, they may find that the available peers are
those who are similar to themselves, with a tendency for aggression and problem
behaviors. This association with similarly deviant peers was true of students who
maintained high levels of bullying over the course of elementary and high school: they
were significantly more likely than non-bullying students to have friends who were also
involved in bullying (Pepler et al.
2008).

The nature of peer relations and the link to the pathway to crime is dynamic and multi-
determined. First, students’ individual characteristics play a role: those students who
have low engagement with school become less connected to peers, which in turn leads to
processes of peer rejection (Hirschfeld and Gasper 2011). Second, teachers’ preferences,
or more accurately their lack of preference for aggressive students, is linked to increases
in peer disliking and rejection (Mercer and DeRosier 2008). Conversely, peer rejection
also predicted lower teacher preference. Third, classroom norms shape the levels of
individual students’ aggression and experiences of victimization (Mercer, McMillan, and

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

DeRosier 2010). Fourth, in special education classrooms where aggressive students are

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

aggregated, deviancy training tends to flourish and students’ problem behaviors are
exacerbated (Dodge, Dishion, and Lansford 2006). Finally, there are school-level effects
on students’ likelihood of being influenced by peers to engage in delinquent activities.
Zimmerman and Rees (2014) found that in schools with strict and consistently applied
policies regarding smoking, drinking, and fighting, the peer effects on delinquency were
attenuated. They noted that the mechanisms are complex and interactive but suggest
that strict school-level policies may not only signal to students the potential discipline
consequences but also the school staff’s concern for students’ well-being, thereby
shaping individual students’ decisions to participate or not in criminal behavior.

(p. 446) III. Conclusion

A. Theory and Research

In considering the role of schools in the pathway to crime, the theoretical perspectives
focus our attention on social bonds (Hirschi 1969), the importance of relationships in
establishing the long-term potential for criminal behavior (see Chapter 11), and on
interactions within the family and beyond that shape the development of criminal
behavior. In her book Schools and Delinquency, Gottfredson (2001) highlights functional
and structural aspects of schools that relate to delinquency. The current research
focuses attention on students’ experience in relationships with their principals, teachers,
other school staff, and peers within the school context. At this point, there is a need to
advance both the theory and research to understand the moment-to-moment interactions
in these relationships that shape students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors
throughout the formative school years and either engage them in the socialization
process or fail to connect with them. Theory and research need to take heterogeneity
into account: some students within the system are more vulnerable than others. If
children enter school with a genetic vulnerability and inadequate socialization
experiences from home and/or daycare, they place a burden on an already stressed
school system. Nevertheless, there is tremendous potential to identify these vulnerable
children early in their school careers and provide the ongoing instrumental and social-
emotional support that they require to be diverted from a troubled pathway.

The research on the development of delinquency raises a critical question: Whose

responsibility is it to help children when their families have not been able to socialize
them and pass on society’s moral values (Skrzypiec, 2013)? If schools are to operate in
loco parentis, then we need to consider schools’ roles in ensuring that children
experience being valued, cared for, guided, directed, and corrected. Schools have a
critical role in collaborating with families in meeting children’s basic needs—to be
educated not only for academic capacities, but also for social-emotional capacities. The
research reviewed in this chapter on the role of schools in the development of criminality
points to both practice and policy implications to ensure that all children, especially the
most vulnerable, are nurtured and supported within the school system.

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

B. Practice

Loeber, Farrington, and Petechuk (2003) have written about the seven years of warning
signs before a youth enters delinquency. They note that most youths who become serious,
violent, and chronic juvenile offenders by age 15 have a history of problem behaviors that
started about seven years earlier in childhood. Loeber and colleagues note that it is not
possible to identify which children will proceed from initial problem (p. 447) behavior to
serious offending. They argue, therefore, that it is better to tackle problem behaviors
during the preschool and elementary school years, before these children develop serious
and consolidated antisocial behavior patterns.

There are now many prevention and early intervention programs that have been
documented as effective. One such program, Stop Now and Plan®—SNAP, has recently
been evaluated with a randomized controlled treatment effectiveness trial (Burke and
Loeber 2015). The SNAP® program for 6- to 12-year-old boys was compared to treatment
as usual. The boys in the SNAP® program had significantly decreased aggression,
conduct, externalizing behavior, oppositional defiant disorder, and attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder symptoms, compared to boys in treatment as usual. The SNAP®
program boys were also lower on internalizing symptoms (depression and anxiety) than
comparison boys. The greatest improvement among the SNAP® boys was found for those
who were at highest risk. The effect sizes associated with the SNAP® program were .29
and .31 for externalizing and internalizing problems, respectively. Farrington and Koegl
(2015) assessed the monetary benefits and costs of the SNAP® program as related to
boys’ future criminal involvement. The cost savings with the recorded and undetected
offenses included were between $17.33 and $31.77 for every $1 spent on the program.
Farrington and Koegl argue for early identification and intervention for youth at risk of
following the pathway to crime.

The highest-risk children in schools present with multiple individual, family, school, and
peer problems. In many cases, these children and families may need intensive services to
meet their needs. Data from the SNAP® program reveal that high-risk boys who
received an enhanced relationship intervention improved the most (Augimeri et al.
2006). These boys had received a “befriending” intervention through which they
developed a relationship with a caring mentor who met with them weekly and engaged
them in community activities. Interventions for high-risk youth need to scaffold for their
diverse and interrelated social-emotional, academic, and relational needs (Pepler 2006).

The peer context within the school plays an important role in shaping antisocial
behaviors (Dodge et al. 2006). Children with behavior problems are often aggregated in
special classrooms—a practice that creates a context for deviance training as described
by Dishion and colleagues (1999). For school staff and other organizations, such as
juvenile detention centers, aggregating difficult students may be easier than having them
integrated into regular classrooms; however, for these students and for society, this
strategy presents a grave concern if it accelerates the move to deviance and crime
(Dodge et al., 2006). New research on teachers’ “invisible hand” in managing the

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

classroom highlights the importance of attunement to individual students and the peer
dynamics (Farmer et al., 2011). We have described teachers’ responsibility for social
architecture, which we identify as strategically organizing peer groupings to minimize
deviant peer processes and maximize inclusion, acceptance, and positive interactions
among peers (Pepler 2006). A reorientation to the social world of students within schools
rather than a singular focus on academic performance will require a reorientation of post-
secondary education of prospective teachers and a redirection of educational policy.

(p. 448) C. Policy

The critical question for policy in education is: What is the goal for all students? If the
goal is to educate “the whole child” and provide a socialization experience to prepare all
children and youth for a productive and happy adulthood, then there is a moral dilemma
to be considered. At present the relationship dynamics within the school system often
appear to marginalize and alienate those children and youth who most need the support
from caring adults. The discipline system may also comprise a process that contributes
to students’ disengagement and alienation from the one system that may be safe and
able to support them.

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing concern about school violence,
bullying, harassment, and safe schools. The policies that have been developed to ensure
safety at school identify the problem behaviors exhibited by students and assign
discipline consequences for these behaviors. The consequences often intensify with
repeated offenses, leading to exclusionary practices of suspension and expulsion.
Morrison and Vaandering (2012) have analyzed the differences in punitive and restorative
practices, both of which are focused on accountability when there has been a problem.
They illustrate how the predominant policy paradigm in school systems focuses on a
framework of rules and regulations, with clearly stated punitive consequences for a
range of transgressions. The desired outcome of the punitive approach is for the offender
to be punished; decisions about the offense and consequences are made by a third party
(e.g., principal), who works to bring students’ behaviors into line with the rules through
punishment. In contrast, the desired outcome for restorative processes is to repair the
harm and restore damaged relationships. Restorative processes include the
perpetrator(s), the individual(s) harmed, other community members, and relevant school
staff. Decisions are facilitated with the individuals involved to achieve an appropriate
resolution of the problem, with strong emotional engagement to build understanding and
move toward reconciliation. The restorative process is primarily educational and
instructive for the students who have offended, and the goal is repair, restitution, and
restoring relationships.

The challenge for policy is to find the balance between the critical concern to ensure that
students and staff in schools are safe and the critical need to educate and rehabilitate
children and youth who have started along the pathway to crime. Given the mounting
evidence regarding the importance of school relationships for children and youths’
healthy development, the time has come to re-examine educational policies and

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

legislation in light of children’s social-emotional development. It is essential to consider

what children need to support their holistic development and what is required for
schools to operate effectively in loco parentis. The challenge is to find the balance in
setting expectations, limits, and consequences. Troubled students need to understand
expectations and experience consequences when they do not meet or transgress these
expectations; however, as Baumrind (1991) points out, consequences need to be meted
out in a way that is balanced with warmth, care, and concern.

The cost of not intervening to support children who have started into the seven-
(p. 449)

year warning period is too great (Loeber et al. 2003). Those children and youth who are
not engaged and connected with school are most likely to drop out. Dropping out of
school is associated with a myriad of poor health and quality of life outcomes
(Freudenberg and Ruglis 2007). Recent research helps to reveal that the school-to-prison
pipeline is essentially a process of being marginalized and alienated within the school
system; it is the sense of disconnection from important school relationships that leads
youth to follow a pathway to crime. A recent analysis of the prison population in Canada
demonstrated the costs of school alienation and dropout: whereas about one-third of the
population in British Columbia has dropped out of high school, three-fourths of those in
prison are high school dropouts. The costs of failing to ensure that children have
adequate socialization and education experiences are too high at individual, family,
community, and societal levels. The solutions lie in enhancing the moment-to-moment
interactions with children and youth in the school context to ensure that they have
healthy relationships to promote their healthy development.

The research reviewed in this chapter indicates that vulnerable children and youths’
propensity to follow a pathway to crime is shaped or diverted to a large extent by the
quality of relationships that they experience within multiple systems in the home, at
school, and in the community over the course of their school career. As Loeber and
Farrington (2001) highlighted in their edited volume, Child Delinquents, the risk and
protective processes that operate to draw children into delinquency begin in the early
years and compound through strained relationships and risky contexts over time. In the
school setting, the process of disengagement and the associated pathway to delinquency
may begin at the moment of school entry (Hirschfeld and Gasper 2011). A focus on
relationships highlights the potential moment-to-moment experiences in students’ lives
at school, which either engage them in the school community and learning process or
accumulate to alienate them and enable them to drift to the margins.

The field of developmental criminology has made great strides over the past few decades
and the rates of youth violence have decreased. Nevertheless, there are children and
youth in society who are vulnerable and often very challenging. These are the children
who need to be identified early and supported in schools with a true in loco parentis
approach, with an appropriate balance of care and guidance, to accelerate their social-
emotional development and their capacity to engage in healthy relationships for their
healthy development through the life span.

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Schools and the Pathway to Crime: A Focus on Relationships

Debra J. Pepler

Debra J. Pepler is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology in the LaMarsh

Centre for Child and Youth Research at York University, Canada.

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