In a Legal Studies class I’m currently taking, I recently learned about an important problem relating to juvenile justice: the school-to-prison pipeline. While I was lucky enough to be living in an excellent school district, many other children in the U.S. simply don’t have that luxury. Today, the crisis of educational inequity in the U.S. has resulted in a school-to-prison pipeline that criminalizes, rather than educates, our kids. The school-to-prison pipeline consists of a set of harsh educational and school safety policies that push kids out of school and into the juvenile justice system.
Students are increasingly suspended and sanctioned for disciplinary reasons, and schools are involving the police in even relatively minor incidents that lead to juvenile detention, arrests, and even criminal charges. School rules are often strictly enforced through security measures like metal detectors, pat-downs, and referrals to the juvenile justice system. Students who commit minor infractions like smoking or skipping class are sometimes suspended, expelled, or even arrested. Students have even been expelled for bringing scissors to art class, giving Midol to classmates, or bringing in household items (including a knife) to be donated to Goodwill. Even children in elementary school have been arrested for acting out or displaying anger in class. One-size-fits-all solutions like these zero-tolerance policies completely ignore the individual circumstances of each case and criminalize students who don’t deserve it.
While many of these students could be easily disciplined through detention, warnings, or a visit to the principal’s office, they are unnecessarily ending up in the justice system. The pipeline also operates indirectly; some schools push low-performing students into GED programs and the juvenile justice system in order to artificially improve their graduation and testing numbers. Moreover, the school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately targets youth of color and those with disabilities. Black students with learning disabilities are four times more likely to be sent to correctional facilities than white students with learning disabilities. I find this statistic absolutely horrifying.
Once suspended or expelled, youth are more likely to get lower grades, repeat a grade, or drop out of high school. This increases their chance of joining gangs, committing crimes, or becoming incarcerated down the road. Disciplinary and criminal records make it very difficult for students to apply to colleges, scholarships, and jobs. In some cases, criminal records prevent students and their families from accessing public housing. Ultimately, harsh penalties for kids don’t deter crime; instead, they drive kids into becoming career criminals.
What are the solutions? We must invest in education rather than the correctional system. Schools are spending money on security measures when they should be paying for books, libraries, counselors, and well-trained teachers instead. We must also improve non-punitive options such as counseling, mentoring, mediation, and increased teacher and parental support for students. While the recent Supreme Court ruling that outlawed life without parole for minors convicted of non-murder crimes moves in the right direction, we need more than a change in the laws. We must look for rehabilitative solutions that address the roots of the problem – such as socioeconomic disparities and educational inequities. By providing a supportive school atmosphere for at-risk students, it is possible to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and prevent kids from entering the juvenile justice system in the first place.
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