Supportive School Discipline Initiative: Addressing the Problem of High Juvenile Delinquency Rates

Table of Contents

Introduction
Background
Purpose and Implementation of the Initiative
References

Introduction

Supportive School Discipline Initiative (SSDI) is a project of the US Department of Education and the Department of Justice, which aimed at preventing the implementation of school disciplinary practices that contributed to students’ delinquency. The project took place between 2011 and 2016 and involved awarding grants to eligible organizations and communities for research and development of effective interventions for improving school discipline systems (Brock, Kriger, & Miró, 2017).

Background

In the US, school policies often push students out of school, which leads them to involve in delinquencies. There is evidence that 60% of 7^th graders have been removed from classes at least once, and 15% of them had at least 11 expulsions or suspensions in 7-12 grades (US Department of Justice, 2012). Research showed that these students were at higher risk of being involved in the justice system subsequently (US Department of Justice, 2012). Yet, there are few programs in the US that have proved themselves to be effective in addressing the issue of youth crime (Films Media Group, 1995). Recently, the juvenile justice system has paid much attention to developing evidence-based prevention and intervention initiatives to address the problem of high juvenile delinquency rates (Schmalleger, 2019). SSDI has become one of such programs, using evidence-based interventions to improve school policies.

Purpose and Implementation of the Initiative

The purpose of the initiative was to reduce children’s risks of becoming delinquent due to inappropriate school policies. One of the objectives of the initiative was to encourage stakeholders to identify the changes necessary to develop alternative discipline policies and foster a positive school climate (US Department of Justice, 2012). In order to fulfill this goal, summits and webinars were held to allow stakeholders to share best practices in school discipline (Brick et al., 2017). In addition, grants were awarded to various organizations in order to train judges to deal with juvenile cases and help schools implement best discipline practices.