The Importance Of School To Prison Pipeline

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.

     “It is not a surprise to see that prisoners all have a low education level. I guess a more educated person has enough sense not to be involved with crime…the relationship between crime and education is easy to see when viewing these facts” (Cordes 1). This is the view of most people when asked why people are in prison. People simply say that criminals were ill educated. As hard as we may try, we cannot do a lot about what happens before they enter prison, but there are many programs inside prisons to help rehabilitate them for when they leave the prison.

“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

The school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies have been implemented in schools in the last 20 years that include inserting school resource officers in schools and cracking down on all behavior that any authority figure may deem as a form of bad behavior. The policy is based upon deterring future misbehavior and is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the effect of any punishment on future behavior is what defines effective punishment (Skinner, 1953). Zero tolerance policies causes the school environment to feel more like a prison and ultimately leads to black and Latinos being judged and guided to the prison system. A zero-tolerance policy orders predetermined penalties or punishments for specific wrongdoings.

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

• 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

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

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.

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.

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 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

Your permanent record! The thing that was held over most of our heads when we were in school. Your teacher or maybe your parents threatened that your bad behavior was going to end up on your “permanent record” and ruin your life. We shrugged them off, thought they were being dramatic or crazy and didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately for some students, the School to Prison Pipeline is making the threat of a bad permanent record all too real, as well as the consequences behind it.

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 we all know prison pipelines are school to prison pipeline is a metaphor used to describe the increase pattern of contact the student have with the juvenile and adults criminal justice system. Even though there are other reasons for going to jail this is the most common reason why young folks are going to jail for simple things. For example; A playground fight which one should be disciplined for but instead would be rather put into handcuffs and taken to police stations for further notice this is due to police being in schools. This makes it doubtful for any child to succeed in life. “If the child is denied the opportunity to education there is no success in their life” which Chief Justice Earl Warren stated to the board of education. If they are being locked up for simply things such as playground fight and are taking to jail the child lacks from class and it becomes frustrating for the child.