The Issue For The Social Work Profession

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 that result in sending individuals from school to prison to pipeline. Studies have shown that these 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 that 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

The school to prison pipeline continues to be one of the huge issues in an education system. In 1990s, zero-tolerance policies, which is “a strict enforcement of regulations and bans against undesirable behaviors or possession of items” (“zero”), have been adopted in various education system in the U.S. The purpose of these zero-tolerance policies was to prevent minor crimes that could become serious crimes, such as violation, murder, negligence, terrorism and more. Thus, many students get prosecuted and sent into the juvenile justice system because of this policy. Under this circumstance, schools should accept exception and consider the reason why they broke the rule. Also, students should not be given heavy punishments

“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.

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.

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.

While the Civil Rights Movement is considered a success, there is still racism in the United States today, in which blacks are still viewed as overly aggressive and overtly dangerous compared to whites. The racism we are familiar with today is called “institutional racism” and is not only shown in workplaces, but in schools and courtrooms. Institutional racism is defined as a pattern of social institutions who give negative treatment to a group of people based on race. To elaborate on institutional racism, starting with pre-school, black children make up only 18 percent of the pre-school population, but make up almost half of out of school suspensions. In K-12 black children are three times as likely to be suspended than white children. Now moving to the court system, black children make up nearly 60 percent of children in prison and are more likely to be sentenced as adults than white children. These statistics show that black’s, even black children, are more likely to be viewed as dangerous and subject to worse sentences.

The continual hyper-criminalization and racialization exhibited by various institutions against young black and latino boys has run rampant in the last decade. Youth in underprivileged communities across America today are subject to an inevitable web of punishment

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

The term “zero tolerance” emerged from the get-tough rhetoric surrounding the war on drugs (McNeal, 2016). In the 1990’s, the term moved to into the educational vernacular due to a mass fear of violence in schools, particularly in reference to firearms. The Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, solidified the implementation of these get-tough policies (McNeal, 2016) and by 1998, the rehabilitative behavioral processes on most campuses across the country were replaced with zero tolerance policies (Rodríguez, 2017). Although they were implemented to combat school violence, school related deaths, despite the perception, have actually decreased since the 1990s (Welch & Payne, 2010). However, zero tolerance policies are still becoming more and more prevalent in schools. These policies have

The phenomena known as the cradle to prison pipeline has been cited as a major contributor to racial discrepancy of incarceration rates. The phrase denotes the ever-increasing amount of contact that students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice system. The “pipeline” is a product of schools adopting strict zero-tolerance polices , Schools that inpose these polices lagerly exist within communities of color due to the precived . In America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline, the President of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman states “disparities start early and continue throughout African Americans’ lives. Black children are pushed out of school given no meaningful alternatives and soon find themselves in the criminal justice

The School-to-Prison pipeline is known to affect minority students who share different ethnic backgrounds. Although it affects students from all ethnic minority groups, African American and Hispanic/Latino students have been recorded to be affected the most by this discriminative action. According to research by Castillo, “Students of color account for a large number of school-enforced punishment and the majority of arrests for school-related infractions. During the 2009-2010 school year, more than 70 percent of students arrested in schools were African American or Latino (2014, p. 48).” Therefore, students of color experience harsher punishments and are more likely to be removed from their educational settings when teachers or administration are attempting to correct their misbehaviors.

In the last decade, the punitive and overzealous tools and approaches of the modern criminal justice system have seeped into our schools, serving to remove children from mainstream educational environments and funnel them onto a one-way path toward prison. These various policies, collectively referred to as the School-to-Prison Pipeline, push children out of school and hasten their entry into the juvenile, and eventually the criminal, justice system, where prison is the end of the road. Historical inequities, such as segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement, all feed the pipeline. The School-to-Prison Pipeline is one of the most urgent challenges in education today. (NAACP 2005)

My understanding of the social work profession and its core values is that social workers are caregivers, they provide assistance to people in need, and they address social problems. The social worker goal is the improvement of society to ameliorate the lives of individuals in need. The social work profession mission is to enhance the well-being of people and to assist them in meeting their basic needs, with particular emphasis on the needs of the poor, and the vulnerable individual. The Social Work profession has six core values. These core values are the foundation of the social work profession. The social worker incorporates these core values into his daily practices. Service to others is one of the fundamental values of social work. Social workers goal is serving others and putting the needs of their clients ahead of their own. Social justice is another core value of social work. Social workers aim at improving the lives of the disadvantaged, vulnerable people who are less fortunate or unable to advocate for themselves. Social workers understand the essential value of every human life, regardless of ethnic background, cultural differences or religious beliefs. Their goal is to respect the dignity and worth of every person. Another key value of social work is integrity. The social workers conduct themselves in a trustworthy, honest, and responsible manner at all times. Competence is another important core value of the social work profession. The

The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.