The Juvenile Justice School To Prison Pipeline

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

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 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

“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.

Recent years have seen many students denied the right to educational opportunities- a key cornerstone of any democratic and enlightened nations- under the policies included in the zero tolerance student discipline policies. The zero tolerance concept in schools developed out of the federal drug enforcement laws of the early 1980’s. Within the context of the school, zero tolerance laws are meant to communicate strongly a message that particular behaviors are intolerable by imposing binding and programmed punishments for specific felonies. These punishments most frequent include school exclusion under expulsion and suspension policies. While the main purpose of zero tolerance policy was to create safety and order in school, there have been concerns over the past few years that these policies are actually harming students. In fact research has disclosed that these policies actually lead to disproportionate and harsh disciplines for students of color hence breeding injustice and favoritism. A series of negative consequences associated with zero tolerance couples with its unproven inefficiency in promoting safety and order in school have been studied and addressed in publications by policy analysts, researchers, and public commentators. However, synonymous researches indicate that those schools with comprehensive approaches to safety in school that entails all angles on prevention and intervention continuum can effectively reduce and address violence and

Since the late 1980s, American school systems have been focused on using zero tolerance policies to remove supposed threats to schools from the education system. Zero tolerance policies present a large problem; they remove due process from the discipline process and by doing so violates the rights to a fair trial. Is this the purpose of the education system in America to punish students and potentially ruin futures or to nurture and improve the potential of students’ lives? While zero tolerance policies do treat all offenders as equal at the time of the infraction, it often fails to examine the full picture. My thesis is that zero tolerance policies in school punish many innocent people who were left with no other option than to defend themselves or give up their lives.

Zero Tolerance policies were enacted with the intent of decreasing the level of violence that was occurring within our nation’s schools. The policy required that schools pursued expulsion and suspension based upon severity of the offense committed by the student. Studies have been conducted to ascertain the effectiveness, or not, of the policy and the ramifications it has had across the educational community. In deciphering the effectiveness of the policy, it is pertinent to analyze the consistency of how policy mandates are implemented, what alternatives to education are provided (if any), and a review of any disparities that revolved as a result. It is also important to consider what changes could be applied that would heighten the learning potential for students who fall prey to ramifications of the policy.

Sheldon critically examines the school-to-prison pipeline as well as the zero-tolerance policy in respects to one another. The Zero-tolerance policy reflects that the school system is tough on crime. This increases the rates in which youth become criminalized at alarming rates than needed. “More minor offenses (or no offenses at all) are now processed formally by the police and the juvenile court.” (Sheldon, 2006) Examples include: (1) A five-year prison sentence for a 17-year old Texas high school basketball player who “threw an elbow” to the head of an opposing player in a basketball game; (2) two six-year old children suspended for three days for playing “cops and robbers” (pretending their fingers were guns and going “bang, bang” toward other children); (3) Suspension of a girl who gave a friend a Nuprin, for ‘dealing drugs’; (4) A 14-year old boy was charged with by school police with a felony for throwing a deadly missile, which turned out to be a Halloween “trick” of throwing an egg. He was taken away in handcuffs and put in juvenile detention.” (Sheldon, 2006) (5) In September 2010 Grant County, Wisconsin, authorities accused a 6-year old boy of first-degree sexual assault of a

Zero Tolerance Policies have been increasing for the last decade. The safety of our students and our schools are what motivates these zero tolerance policies to continue to increase. These policies, also known as “no-nonsense path” have brought about major controversies because they are increasing the punishment and school exclusion. These policies have drastically increased the number of students put out of school for disciplinary purposes and they are also increasing the student’s reactions with the law (Skiba, 2014). This is leading to a growing convergence between schools and the legal systems because of the students going into the juvenile systems (Heitzeg, 2009). Research has shown that there are other ways in handling these problem behaviors that lead to a better school environment and also safe schools.

School plays a fundamental role in most people’s lives. It provides people with an education that will allow them to succeed in their future careers. Schools, specifically high schools, make a great effort in ensuring their student’s safety. One of the policies they use to ensure safety is the zero tolerance policy, a one-size-fits all policy which punishes students for anything that the school sees as unsafe. The policy was established in 1990 and covers safety issues such as bringing weapons, drugs, threats, and bullying. According to the zero tolerance policy, both people involved in a bully incident must be punished- the bully and the student who attempts to defend themselves. This causes a significant amount of school dropouts, as the students are often suspended or expelled, leaving a permanent mark on their record, even the student who attempts to defend themselves. Instead of punishing a student for their behavior, school officials should reinforce model behavior and examine the student’s intent before punishing.

Nearly 20 years after our nation's schools began using zero-tolerance discipline policies to curb violence, drug usage and threats of violence, reform efforts are now in the works. Recent data on the rates of suspensions and expulsions have lead school officials to the question: Are zero-tolerance policies are being overused? Today there are many school districts are trying new approaches, such as behavior counseling, which were strongly encouraged by the Obama administration. Advocates of these policies agree that some school districts have been overenthusiastic but say schools are much safer today largely because of said policies. Critics feel that the harsh discipline doesn’t always match the crime and that having armed security or School Resource Officer’s only feeds the so-called “School-to-Prison Pipeline”.

Black people and Latinos have been painted as delinquents, through the lens of white narrative, in order to justify the injustices that they commit towards races that are not white. The implementation of a zero tolerance policy has been instituted by white congress to “correct” the deviant behaviors that youth of color, not acknowledging all the barriers and hoops white people place upon them, is what is making them rebel. Once again it is white elite who decide the future of people or color. The zero tolerance policy, which gives harsh punishments to a student by school staff and law enforcements officials, has been a major catalyst in the criminalization of youth in urban areas. It was meant as a way to stop uprising criminal behavior ____quote…. Yet it is evident that this policy targets people of color, and is doing much more harm than good. These early run ins with the law can ruin a child's life in the long run. Because once they are in the system they will always be viewed as a criminal. This leads to loss of employment opportunity, which thus causes those labeled “criminals” into illicit activities in order to actually make ends meet. School policies should be proactive and distinguish between misbehavior and criminality.

School to prison pipeline is a metaphor used to describe the increasing patterns of contact students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems because of the recent practices implemented by educational institutions, zero tolerance policies, and the use of police in schools. Zero tolerance means refusal to accept antisocial behavior, typically by strict and uncompromising application of the law. It is a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century. Teachers and authorities in school believe that mass incarceration will reduce the violence in schools.

This study explores zero tolerance policies and school discipline to better understand its effect in to bring awareness to an issue that may help in dismantling this pipeline. Particularly looking at those school divisions within Virginia that have disciplined students by expelling them or placing them on long-term suspension, since these discipline measures are often used as part of zero tolerance policies, to see if these same divisions had lower on-time graduation rates than those divisions that did not utilize such means.

Nationally some students, based on their behavior(s) in school, are guided out of the public school system and led into the juvenile and criminal justice system. According to one study from 2010, over 3 million students were suspended from school in K - 12th grade and more than a quarter-million referred directly to the police for situations that were “non-threatening”. Also, the majority of the students disciplined were students with disabilities, minority males, and LGBT populations. Subsequently, this is considered the Pipeline to