Book Review: Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety by Charles Bell
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806231196694 |
| Author | Robert J Durán |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
In addition, Barak points to an implicit lesson in terms of how people perceive their
place vis-a-vis the world around them. Barak provides fascinating accounts of migrants
that illustrate their free-market ethos of free trade and movement. These concepts are
inherently adopted by migrants who understand their place in a globalized world in a
manner distinct from that of the parochial politicians and their constituents who
oppose their movement. Barak does not attack these politicians; her book focuses on
the immigration courts, their procedures, and the responses of the migrants. However,
this context, which is implicit and would be known to a contemporary reader, is
important.
The minimizing of this context is perhaps the book’s one weakness. Its discussion is
important for those interested in migration. Although the fast violence experienced by
Central American migrants is present, it is in the background. While some of the devas-
tating push factors that inform Central American migrants’decisions to relocate, even
when they do not have permission to do so, are mentioned, the full impact, truth, and
presence of this violence feels understated. Skeptics may not be convinced that this
rapid violence is real. The book could have further developed the fast violence that moti-
vated many of the Central Americans to head for the USA so that readers could better
connect with the migrants, particularly as the book ages. The book could have also
explored, even briefly, why the USA, as opposed to Mexico or Spain, is the ultimate des-
tination for these migrants; those reasons may not be obvious to readers unfamiliar with
migrant decision making.
Certainly, these concerns do not detract from the overall contribution of Barak’s book
and its primary focus of identifying how procedural justice plays out in immigration
courts. Substantive justice must be part of the conversation if procedural justice is to
be effective. Even though no clear political path is available, Barak’s vision of what
removal proceedings should look and feel like is reasonable and convincing, making
The Slow Violence of Immigration Court a must-read book.
Charles Bell, Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety, Johns Hopkins
University Press: Baltimore, MD, 2021; 182 pp.: 9781421442464, $32.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Robert J Durán, Texas A&M University, USA
To begin this book review, I would first like to ask the reader three questions about your K-12
experiences. Have you ever been suspended or expelled? How many times have you been sus-
pended or expelled? How many days did those suspensions last? Charles Bell asked these direct
questions to students in his book Suspended. The context for this study is the city of Detroit and
its surrounding suburbs. As one of the most violent cities in the country with one of the highest
dropout rates, a suspension can have long-lasting implications for young Black men and
women. This review will provide an overview of the key themes in Bell’s book followed by
an overall analysis of the author’s contribution to the understanding of schools.
A central theme throughout Suspended is Bell’s assertion that schools are anti-Black institu-
tions. Schools contribute to “the systemic devaluation, criminalization, and exclusion of Black
people from social institutions in mainstream society.”(p. 11) The ideology in the United States
252 Theoretical Criminology 28(2)
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