School To Prison Pipeline Analysis

Although the justice system is supposed to enforce and prohibit flaws in our country's system there still is much discrimination and injustice towards people of color. The text “Fact Sheet: How Bad is the School-to-Prison Pipeline” shows how the school-to-prison pipeline, which refers to the inequality giving to the students who are doing poorly in school, is one of the many problems affecting the justice system. For example, “Others blame educators, accusing them of pushing out students who score lower on standardized tests in order to improve the school’s overall test scores” by Amurao Carla. This is important because it shows how educators are excluding students who need more help because their test scores are low. Those students are losing

1. In the article, The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Rhetoric or Reality, by Aaron Kupchik, he discusses youth introduction to the juvenile justice system. The article argues that schools do in fact shape a child’s interaction with the system and it has to do with the school’s discipline, which Kupchik describes using “the school-to-prison pipeline” metaphor. The article delves into the unhealthy changes which schools have implemented to their discipline that promote the pipeline. He concludes by proposing strategies for reform that address the issue head on.

“Tomorrow 's future is in the hands of the youth of today” is not a particularly new sentiment. But what is new, what has become a pressing question, is what is to become of the future if our youth are behind bars instead of in schools? Youth today are being pushed into the criminal justice system at an alarming rate. This issue is known as the school to prison pipeline ─ the rapid rate at which children are pushed out of schools and into the criminal justice system. The school to prison pipeline is a term that came into use by activists in the late 1970’s and has gained recognition throughout the years as the issue became more prominent in the 1990’s. Some activists view policies meant to “correct” misbehaviors, especially in regards to Zero Tolerance policies and the policing of schools, as a major contributor to the pipeline. Others believe that the funding of schools and the education standards are to blame for the rapid increase of youth incarcerations. While the school to prison pipeline affects every student, African American students, both male and female, are more often the victim of discrimination in education. The school to prison pipeline must end, and the trend must be reversed.

America is the land of opportunities and the land of freedom, where people can carry guns and received free options like free education; Everyone can criticize anything including the government and get away with it. In the article “The School-to-Prison Pipeline” by Los Angeles journalist Marilyn Elias, she elaborates how racial minorities and children with disabilities were disproportionately represented in the school-to-prison pipeline. Elias suggest that teachers were harsher with Minorities and children with disabilities and these children were disproportionately suspended and expelled which increases the likelihood to be a drop out and wind up behind bars. It was mentioned that police on campus has helped to criminalized many students and

In the article, The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Rhetoric or Reality, by Aaron Kupchik, he discusses how youth are introduced to the juvenile justice system. The article argues that schools do in fact shape a child’s interaction with the system and it has to do with the school’s discipline, which Kupchik describes using a “the school-to-prison pipeline” metaphor. The article delves into the unhealthy changes that have been implemented to school’s discipline which promote the pipeline. He concludes by proposing strategies for reform that address the issue head on.

• This article examines the effects of enforcement polices in schools dealing with troubled youth. • Racial disparities in regards to discipline of students in schools. • Examines schools in different states • Disuses the collaboration between schools and law enforcement • Finds that there are detrimental effects of the school to prison pipeline • Explains the correlation between stringent discipline, or zero tolerance policies and juvenile delinquency

In the most recent years, the relationship between educational institutions and the juvenile justice system which was once created to protect children, has displayed an ultimatum for minors through “zero tolerance” policies which results in sending individuals through the school to prison to pipeline. Studies have shown that these zero tolerance policies are not beneficial to students or the educational environment that should be guaranteed to children. Opponents argue that the policies promote safety, but through this research it can be concluded the policies actually increase danger. Studies demonstrate the factors that affect the enforcement of these policies which include media, the sociopolitical atmosphere, and the racial disproportionality, yet there are valid solutions for this issue that can be explored.

We’ve all seen it at least once. We’ve all passed by a middle or a high school and seen a police car on campus. Sometimes we even happen to see a teen in handcuffs getting detained. When you see things like this happen do you ever just stop and think whether students that are detained or incarcerated get the education they need? There are few experiences in the lives of children as critical as education. While all children learn directly and indirectly from their families, neighbors, and peers, formal education and school experiences provide the foundation and establish the trajectory for post-secondary education, employment, and wellbeing in adulthood. Historically, one group of students in the United States has received grossly inadequate education: children in juvenile correctional facilities. Little to nothing is known about educational programs in juvenile detention centers. Limited information is available on best practices for educating youth in the juvenile justice system whether committed or detained. Koyama cites that existing empirically based educational practices do not readily transfer to the unique environment of a secure setting or adequately address the intense needs of court-involved youth (ctd. in Koyama 36).

THE EFFECTS OF SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE AND HOW IT CAN BE STOPPED: A CASE OF TEXAS STATE

The School-to-Prison Pipeline presents the intersection of a K-12 educational system and a juvenile system, which too often fails to serve our nations at risk youth. For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for "extras" such as counselors, special education services, even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later court involvement (Bennett-Haron, Fasching-Varner, Martin, & Mitchell 2014). Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores (Cramer, Gonzales, & Lafont-Pellegrini 2014). Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances. Under these policies, students have been expelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school (Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson 2005). Rates of suspension have increased dramatically in recent years from 1.7 million in 1998 to 3.1 million in 2010

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a “national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems” (“School-to-Prison Pipeline”). This phenomenon brings children into the juvenile justice system at a very young age. An article published in the journal Urban Education explains that, “The school-to-prison pipeline contributes to the atmosphere of increased surveillance of schools including police presence in schools, zero-tolerance policies, physical restraint tactics, and automatic consequence policies, resulting in suspensions from school” (Martin, Beese 2015). By increasing police presence in schools, children are more likely to be searched, questioned, or targeted by police than they would be without police present. And as a result, “children are far more likely to be subject to school-based arrests—the majority of which are for nonviolent offenses, such as disruptive behavior—than they were a generation ago” (“School-to-Prison Pipeline”). For example, if a child was misbehaving in class in a school that had a police presence, they could possibly get arrested and sent to prison. But if a child was acting the same way in a school that did not have any police presence, they would not be arrested. Police would most likely be present in a school in an urban environment or poor neighborhood because more crime occurs in urban and poor places, so in theory, by placing police in schools, they would be preventing any crimes

The ever-growing problem that is occurring in public schools around the country is the school to prison pipeline epidemic. The school to prison pipeline is a term used to describe how students are being pushed out of public school and into the criminal justice system. This epidemic is a result of the education system’s zero tolerance policy that enforces harsh punishments for misbehaving students. Although its goal was to eliminate misbehavior, studies have shown that the increased disciplinary actions have resulted in a modified school environment, police in school

Upon reviewing the literature that some scholars have already research, I have found Fader, Lockwood, Schall, and Stokes and some other authors that have researched something similar to my question, “How is School to Prison Pipeline affecting juveniles around the United States?”. In 2014, Fader wrote an article called A Promising Approach to Narrowing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: The WISE Arrest Diversion Program. In the article, it mentions how the school to prison pipeline came about and how hard it is for a student who enters the school to prison pipeline to get out of it, there’s a stigma to the kids once they have entered the pipeline. By having an afterschool program called WISE might help students enter the

As detailed by the American Civil Liberties Union (2013), the circumstances and policies contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline include: 1) failing public schools, in which inadequate resources in public schools create second-rate educational environments, thus decreasing engagement and increase dropout, 2) zero tolerance and other school ‘discipline’ policies impose unnecessarily harsh punishments, which leave students unsupervised and more likely to fall behind in school work, and which most dramatically impact children of color, 3) high-stakes testing creates a less engaging student environment and creates incentives for schools to push out low preforming students, 4) disciplinary alternative education programs for suspended or expelled students lack accountability, quality services, and leave students struggling to return to their regular schools, and 5) despite decreased resources, there has been an increased reliance on police who increase school-based arrests.

In a report from Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, Steurer, Linton, Nally and Lockwood (2010) found that 94% of state and federal inmates recognized education as the top personal reentry tool they needed before being released (p. 41). Inmates clearly understand the importance of education in their success once they are released, and it is time to provide them with the skills they need while they are incarcerated. According to Pam Levan, an adult education teacher in the Laporte County area for over twenty years, ”They [inmates] didn’t have enough basic education to know they shouldn’t do certain things that would lead them to prison, or even know the difference between right and wrong” (personal communication, December 2, 2013). Not only are inmates lacking school education resulting in a high school or college diploma, but many also lack common knowledge on what they should and should not do in society. Many inmates grew up in a family and/or neighborhood that did not teach them right from wrong but rather reinforced a life of crime. Education is the key to decreasing the cycle of crime because it allows inmates to learn from their mistakes and have a better chance at a life without crime upon their release.