The School-To-Prison Pipeline Thesis

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.

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 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.

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.

The school to prison pipeline is harmful to the education system because it targets students, especially minorities to mold into the criminal justice system. This could be detrimental to their self-esteem and success in school because the pipeline was made to

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

Most students exposed to the school-to-prison-pipeline are minority, or students who have history of poverty, or students with disabilities. I believe there are other consequences for misbehaved students. The new “zero tolerance” policy criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while cops in schools lead to students being criminalized for behavior that should be handled inside the school. “For most students, the pipeline begins with the inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special education services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This failure to meet educational needs increases

The pipeline funnels these kids out of schools and into corrections. In 1899 the first juvenile court was founded in the United States based upon the concept of parens patriae (Curtis p. 6). Parens Patriae translates to “parent of the nation” and allows the state power/authority to protect these children who are legally unable to protect themselves. Under this new system the judge is supposed to review the situation and then distribute treatments to address the delinquency and well-being of the child. However judges are using the broad use of judicial discretion and can thus further push kids down the pipeline. For example, Aaron Curtis talks about a student, who had mental-health issues, was arrested and thus brought to the juvenile justice system. The student was the detained in a facility so that he could be “assessed”,

Kids get yanked out of schools and get sent to prison, and it is mostly black students and poor students. The reason for this happening is because prisons get double the funding schools get, so as a result the prisons get filled up with students, and those students are mostly black and/or poor. This source is somewhat similar to a couple of the other sources because it talked about the school to prison pipeline system, the funding of the systems and the results of it. The author of this article wanted to inform the reader about the system and show that with a little more education and a little more tolerance there would be a lot less crimes. This article shows that education is the way to decrease the number of prisoners.

In today’s modern society we believe that schools should be a place of inclusion and equal opportunity, but while everyone is allowed access to schooling, the education they receive is widely different. Each year the disparities between the upper and lower classes continue to grow and so does the problems within our schools. One of the biggest problems we see in our education system is the marginalization of minority youth in the school-to-prison pipeline. The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the trend that is pushing many at risk youth from low-income areas into the criminal justice system. The school-to-prison pipeline is caused by a lot of cultivating issues and society problems.

In conclusion, the articles shed light on the education to prison pipeline and it is detrimental effects on people of color. The article that I need more clarification was on the Makada Graham article it was a difficult reading for me. I grasp how she is trying to explain the child’s environment has an imprint on how they take on life changes. Moreover, I do understand how she is trying to get social workers to comprehend ways they can assist children to better understand their environment.

This process is called “school-to-prison pipeline”. The school to prison pipeline is an astonishing nationwide tendency. It is the process of High Risk Youths being channeled out of public schools into the penal systems. There are many City youths with learning incapability’s, history of poverty, abuse, neglect, or violent behavior. These youths can definitely benefit from counseling and rehabilitation services. However, these youths are isolated, penalized, and forced out of the school system. Our present day “Zero-tolerance” legislation criminalizes minor infractions of school regulations. In parallel, law enforcement officials in school criminalize and arrest youths for actions, which should have been remedied on school grounds (School to prison pipeline). African American youths are generally susceptible to funnel-out trends and the bigotry usage of punishment. The school to prison pipeline pushes our country’s schoolchildren, especially our High Risk Youths out of classrooms (School to prison

School to Prison Pipeline – This topic is important because it effects the quality of education received by students of color and students who identify as a part of the LGBTQ community. It is important for all involved in the education field to be aware of the issues surrounding this topic and the possible reasons as to why students are entering the prison system early. In order to ensure that all students get the education they need and deserve, it is important for educators to remain aware and constantly seek possible answers and solutions to this ongoing problem.