Claims about crime and exclusions from London's Violence Reduction Unit. Part 2
Have half of prisoners been excluded from school?
The story so far
London’s Violence Reduction Unit, published an “Inclusion Charter” for London’s boroughs to sign up to. It claimed the following:
An Ofsted report on knife crime showed that children excluded from school are twice as likely to carry a knife, while data also highlights that almost one in two of the prison population were excluded as children.
In Part 1, I explained why there is good reason to think that neither statistic tells us anything about the negative consequences of exclusion. I also showed how little evidence there was for the claim about excluded pupils and knives.
Is the claim about prisoners true?
The other statistic, the claim that half of prisoners have been excluded from school, is attributed to a 2018 press release from the IPPR. That press release did indeed state that:
One in two prison inmates were excluded when at school
The press release was publicising a terrible and inaccurate report from the IPPR, which also made the absurd claims that almost all excluded pupils had mental health problems and that exclusions cost £370000 per pupil. The claim about prison inmates appears to have been a reference to the following statistic in the report:
The majority of UK prisoners were excluded from school. A longitudinal study of prisoners found that 63 per cent of prisoners reported being temporarily excluded when at school (MoJ 2012)1. Forty-two per cent had been permanently excluded…
Temporary exclusions are now called “suspensions”, so it would be highly misleading for the VRU to have used the 63% figure as the basis for a claim made about “excluded pupils”. Either way, neither statistic is well described by the VRU’s phrase of “almost one in two”.
Previously, I have written at length about the many different statistics produced about prisoners and exclusions:
Blog post: The Commission on Young Lives report and young people in custody
Blog post: Does being expelled or suspended turn you into a criminal?
Blog post: Chasing Up Another Fake Statistic About Exclusions
To summarise what I found out when I wrote those posts: there are no good sources for the exclusion histories of adult prisoners, although the quoted source used by the IPPR, a MOJ report based on a study of new prisoners from 2005/6, is better than most. However, like other sources, it is based on prisoners’ recollections of having been excluded, even though what is meant by “excluded” has changed over time.
The best evidence I can find about prisoners and exclusions is this MOJ/DfE report about the background of young offenders, which found that fewer than a quarter of young people in custody had been permanently excluded, although the vast majority had been suspended.
This study looked directly at the education records of young offenders. This is likely to be more accurate than data collected in a survey. However, there are obvious limitations to only using data for young offenders.
Do journalists ever check their facts?
The VRU’s two statistics, seem to be doing the rounds at the moment.2 An article about the VRU, from earlier this month, in the magazine/website Children & Young People Now reported that:
A 2019 report from Ofsted found that children excluded from school were twice as likely to carry a knife, while separate research highlights one in two of the prison population were excluded as children.
A BBC article this week reported that:3
VRU director Lib Peck says: “When you look at young people who aren’t in school, we know they are much less safe, they’re more likely to be caught up in exploitation, unfortunately, they’re more likely to be caught up in violence.
“Kids out of school are twice as likely to be carrying a knife, and when we go into a prison, one in two of those prisoners have been excluded.”
It is noticeable that both of these sources have turned “almost one in two” into “one in two”. It is disappointing that some journalists will repeat whatever statistics the VRU give them, without actually checking their provenance. Groups like the VRU are state-funded political activists, not independent experts. They are soldiers, not scouts4. It is time all journalists understood this.5 Anyone reporting on exclusions and knife crime in London should know that London already has very low rates of exclusion and suspension, and should be asking the activists why they think more of the same will work, not republishing their propaganda uncritically.
Prisoners’ childhood and family backgrounds Results from the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR) longitudinal cohort study of prisoners, which can be found here.
False statistics about prisoners and exclusions are quite common, so the claim about prisoners is one among many. The claim about carrying knives stands out a bit more, and I was shocked to discover that it had appeared in the Timpson Report into school exclusions:
…Ofsted found that children who are excluded from school are twice as likely to carry a knife.
The Ofsted blog post I mentioned earlier is the source for this claim, which should have been checked before being included. Schools Week also included the claim in a 2019 fact check. Unfortunately, it was the one claim they don’t appear to have fact-checked.
This article has to be seen to be believed. It promotes an anti-discipline agenda and celebrates a primary school for perfectly normal things such as teachers not shouting at children and not giving detentions. The headteacher also boasts of not having excluded a child who brought in a knife. Ofsted has rated the school “requires improvement” although, to be fair, it was not criticised for behaviour or safeguarding. However, there is evidence that others do not agree that the school is safe.
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Politicians should also understand and care about this. According to that BBC report, “20 of London's 32 boroughs have signed up” to the Inclusion Charter.