Education and Crime

Abstract

This chapter analyses young people’s accounts of their schooling. Some dimensions have already been discussed in previous chapters and this particular attention to schooling is warranted because it is central to the young people’s experience, their self-understandings and hopes for the future. Here we examine their accounts of classroom life, exclusion from school and how some young people end up acquiring a ‘statement of special educational needs’ that specifies ‘Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties ’ (EBD). Across our study 68 per cent (n = 75) had been excluded from school and 50 per cent (n = 55) had received statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN), which led to placements in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs, or ‘short-stay schools’) and special schools. We argue that the political ecology of schooling is manifest in the young people’s experiences of educational placement and the logic of the interventions is premised on specific ways of understanding the links between educational success and social inclusion and between educational failure and crime.