Background: School violence may elicit harsh disciplinary actions, leading to violence of increasing severity involving firearms and subsequent involvement with the justice system. For youth who perpetrate violence in schools, particularly youth of color, little is understood of their perpetration of firearms violence over time. Using a longitudinal study of children and youth in Minnesota, we estimated associations between rates of school violence incidents leading to disciplinary referrals and future involvement in weapon-related violent crime among racial/ethnic groups.

Methods: Our cohort included all public school students (N=933,663) in Minnesota followed from 2008-2021. Using Minnesota-Linking Information for Kids (Minn-LInK), data from the Minnesota Department of Education’s Disciplinary Incident Reporting System (DIRS) were linked with crime charge data from the State Court Administrator’s Office. Disciplinary violence rates per year of school and incidence rates of convicted charges were calculated among race/ethnicity groups, including American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Black not of Hispanic origin (Black), and White not of Hispanic origin (White). Poisson regression with robust error variance compared annual risk of convicted charges among categories of cumulative DIRS violence events within strata of race/ethnicity.

Results: School disciplinary violence rates were greater among Black (14.0) and American Indian students (9.7 events per 100 person-years) compared to their White (1.7) and Asian peers (1.2). Higher proportions of American Indian (1.9%) and Black (2.1%) youth were convicted of weapon-related violence charges compared to White and Asian youth (both 0.2%). However, the annual relative risk of being convicted for a weapon-related violent crime among students with three or more cumulative school violence disciplinary events versus those with no prior events was greater among Asian (RR 6.97, 95% CL 2.97-16.34) and White (RR 5.64, 95% CL 4.15-7.65) youth than among American Indian (RR 2.88, 95% CL 1.98-4.21) and Black (RR 3.48, 95% CL 2.94-4.13) youth.

Conclusion: Mitigating violence in school is critical for preventing weapons-related violence into adulthood across all race/ethnicities. However, the effects of disciplinary actions have a notably stronger effect among Asian and white youth. Further research will examine the role of school disciplinary actions in moderating the differential associations between school violence and involvement in the justice system within racial/ethnic groups of students.