Charles Bell

Dr. Charles Bell is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences. His research explores how out-of-school suspension, seclusion, restraint, and school safety measures impact students, parents, and teachers. He also examines social factors that contribute to violent student-student and student-teacher altercations. Dr. Bell's work has been published in several scholarly and public engagement outlets such as Urban Education, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Crime and Justice, The Conversation, Kappan, Sociology Compass, etc. The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) selected his book Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) as a finalist for the 2021 C. Wright Mills Book Award.

Dr. Bell is a subject matter expert on school discipline, violence, and safety projects with the National Center for School Safety (NCSS). He has also collaborated on projects with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and served as an expert witness in state and federal school punishment cases.

Dr. Bell has been interviewed and cited by several news outlets such as NBC News, NPR, Detroit News, WGLT, Atlanta Black Star, Lakeshore PBS, Detroit PBS, WCBU Peoria, WMBD Central Illinois, and Al Jazeera America.

His next book, No Restraint: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America’s Schools, focuses on how school seclusion and restraint impact families of children with disabilities. New York University Press published No Restraint on February 24, 2026.