Teenagers excluded from school ‘twice as likely’ to commit serious violence

Large-scale analysis of UK police and education records reveals link between expulsion and violence within year

Teenagers who are permanently excluded from school are twice as likely to commit serious violence within a year of their expulsion than those who were merely suspended, a large-scale new analysis of police and education records has shown.

London's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), set up to tackle the number of teenagers dying as a result of knife crime in the capital, said the new research is the first direct evidence of a clear link between children being excluded from school and involvement in violence".