School-to-Prison Pipelines for Children with Brain Injury: Perspectives from the UK.

By: Hope Kent, MSc

In the UK, the rate of school exclusions has been rising since 2012 (Timpson, 2019). Children who are excluded from school often have poorer educational achievement, poorer mental health, higher levels of unemployment, and homelessness (Pirrie et al., 2011). School exclusion can impact children’s peer relationships, lower their self-esteem, and add strain to family dynamics. School exclusion is also an important predictor of future contact with the criminal justice system. The Ministry of Justice report that 42% of people in prison in the UK had been permanently excluded from school at some point (2016).  In research, this has been called the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, because education systems are failing to support these children. For particularly vulnerable children, like children in care and children with disabilities this effect is amplified.

Children who are permanently excluded from mainstream school, or who have lots of short-term exclusions, spend time in ‘Alternative Provision’ settings in the UK. For children who are excluded for behavioral reasons, this is most often a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). Being sent to a PRU represents a severe form of exclusion, and mainstream schools are often reluctant to accept children back from PRUs. Children in PRUs are particularly vulnerable to later justice system contact (DfE, 2018). Evidence demonstrates that the more exclusions a child has, the more likely they are to be arrested at a later date (Mowen & Brent, 2016). PRUs have been described as being like ‘holding units’ for Young Offenders Institutes rather than settings for effective education, as they contain such a melting pot of very vulnerable children.

An American research study by Nagele and colleagues (2019) identified through hospital records that approximately 145,000 children are living with social and behavioral disability as a result of moderate or severe brain injury in the US, but that only 26,371 students receive any special educational support for brain injury – just 18%. Nagele’s study suggests that there are many children in school who have ongoing functional problems because of brain injury, who don’t get proper recognition and tailored support. This could seriously increase the risk of school exclusion. In the US, traumatic brain injury is a listed disability that entitles students to receive special educational support in the form of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). However, in the UK brain injury is not listed as a category of disability that would entitle a student to receive the equivalent Special Educational Needs (SEN) support. Whilst there is an ‘other’ category which they could receive support under, it is much harder to receive a tailored plan when brain injury isn’t listed as a category of its own. We also don’t have clear data about how many children are receiving SEN support for brain injury as a result.

Children in Young Offenders Institutes have very high rates of brain injury. When we studied children aged 16-18 in a Young Offender’s Institute in Bristol in the UK, we found that 74% had experienced a head injury of any kind, and that 46% had experienced a brain injury leading to a loss of consciousness (Kent et al., 2021). In the general population, estimates of brain injury prevalence range from about 8% to 12%.

Whilst it is known that brain injuries and school exclusions are risk factors for contact with the justice system, we wanted to explore whether they are also risk factors for entering the justice system at a younger age[1]. Being convicted of a crime at a young age has a catastrophic impact on children’s life chances, and can sever any existing peer and family support networks (Muncie, 2014). The younger you are when you enter the criminal justice system, the greater your chances of reoffending and becoming stuck in the ‘revolving door’ of justice system contact. Young Offenders Institutes are harmful environments for children, and studies report high rates of racism, violence, and self-harm (Gavin, 2014). We studied over 3,000 adult prisoners in Wales, UK. The prison used a functional screening tool that captured general neurodisability in key areas associated with brain injury including cognition and executive function. We found that the more school exclusions someone had experienced, the younger they were at first conviction. Prisoners who had been sent to a PRU were first convicted six years younger on average than prisoners who had never been excluded from school. This is the difference between being convicted at the age of 12 rather than 18.

We also found that prisoners with higher levels of neurodisability were younger when they were first convicted, and over half of this relationship was explained by the impact of school exclusion.

There are several ways we can improve educational support for children with brain injury going forwards, and early intervention is key to breaking the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’ Providing SEN assessments for children who have been to hospital for a head injury, screening for brain injuries at the point of first exclusion, and providing more resource for tailored support plans to retain children in mainstream schools is key to preventing children ending up in the justice system. In the UK, brain injury being given a specific SEN category would really help children to receive specialist support plans. School policy should ideally move away from school exclusion as a punishment and instead focus on improving support available in mainstream schools.  

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The Academy of Certified Brain Injury Specialists strives to improve the quality of care for individuals with brain injury. Are you interested in becoming certified as a brain injury specialist? Learn more.

References

Department for Education. (2018a). Creating opportunity for all: Our vision for alternative provision. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/713665/Creating_opportunity_for_all_-_AP_roadmap.pdf.

Gavin, P. (2014). No place for children: A case for the abolition of child imprisonment in England and Wales. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, 14, 5.

Kent, H., Williams, W.H., Hinder, D., Meadham, H., Hodges, E., Agarwalla, V., Hogarth, L. and Mewse, A. (2021). ‘Poor parental supervision associated with traumatic brain injury and reactive aggression in young offenders’, Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, DoI:10.1097/HTR.0000000000000678.

Ministry of Justice. (2016). Unlocking potential: A review of education in prison. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524013/education-review-report.pdf.

Mowen, T., & Brent, J. (2016). School discipline as a turning point: The cumulative effect of suspension on arrest. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53, 628-653.

Muncie, J. (2014). Youth and Crime. Sage.

Nagele, D., Hooper, S. R., Hildebrant, K., McCart, M., Dettmer, J. L., Glang, A. (2019). Under identification of students with long term disability from moderate to severe TBI: Analysis of causes and potential remedies. Physical Disabilities: Education and Related Services, 38, 10-25.

Pirrie, A., Macleod, G., Cullen, M. A. & McCluskey, G. (2011). What happens to pupils permanently excluded from special schools and pupil referral units in England? Br. Educ. Res. J. 37, 519-538.

Timpson. (2019). Timpson review of school exclusion. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/807862/Timpson_review.pdf

[1] Our findings from this study are currently under review so are not yet published.