Aaron Kupchik, The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of Harsh School Punishment
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Author | Liana Pennington |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517733432 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Aaron Kupchik, The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of Harsh
School Punishment, University of California Press: Oakland, CA, 2016; 165 pp. (including
index): 978052084203, $66 (cloth), $29.95 (pbk)
The threat of school violence is a constant presence in the news. The safety of
children attending our nation’s schools is considered a pressing social issue, con-
suming more and more tax dollars. The public views school violence as an intrac-
table problem which can only be addressed with more security, additional police
officers, and harsher school discipline. Metal detectors, security cameras, and
police officers have become the norm in many schools (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2017). Students are disciplined more harshly than in prior
decades, particularly poor students and students of color (Rocque and Paternoster,
2011). In the age of zero tolerance policies, students as young as five have been
suspended for schools for minor infractions, such as pretending a stick on the
playground is a firearm (Schmidt, 2017).
In the book The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of
Harsh School Punishment, Aaron Kupchik turns our common notions concerning
the threat of school violence on their head. Kupchik convincingly establishes that
school violence is not on the rise, despite the frequent news reports. Rather, it is the
public’s fear and anxiety concerning school violence that have increased. The
book’s main objective is to “to fuel an open, evidence-based discussion about
school safety” (p. 127). He defines the real school safety problem as the policies
that we currently implement in the name of keeping schools safe. He argues that
school safety policies that focus on excessive punishment are not only mostly
ineffective but these policies actually harm students, families, and communities.
His central aim is to broaden the discussion to include consequences that are not
currently included in the policy debates concerning school safety. He first examines
the negative effects of excessive school punishment on students’ families. In
Chapter 4, titled “Hurting Families,” the author interviews family members of
students suspended or expelled from school in Mobile, Alabama. He demonstrates
how parents also suffer from emotional strain when their child repeatedly experi-
ences excessive school punishment, particularly when that discipline seems unwar-
ranted. In particular, Kupchik finds that many parents “had given up on trying to
intervene on behalf of their child and, in some cases, on education for their child
entirely” (p. 71). Excessive school discipline has the effect of alienating these
Punishment & Society
2019, Vol. 21(2) 251–263
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474517733432
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