The School-to-Prison Pipeline: How Kids Are Primed For Jail

The public education system is supposed to be a great equalizer in America.  It makes sense as an ideal; we have a system in place which makes sure virtually every child in in the nation has an institution of learning to go to.  From there, they can learn the skills to get a job or go to college to get a higher paying job.

But, just as many societal ideals, this is too often not a reality.

Let’s set aside the problem of the price and accessibility of higher education for a moment and focus on the kids who often don’t ever make it out of high school.  We have a big problem in this country with unnecessarily criminalizing children, often for non-violent offenses or offenses that are ultimately rooted in discrimination or structural barriers.

This problem is collectively known as the school-to-prison pipeline, and the image that name evokes is fairly accurate.  It is a system in which some groups of students in this nation are disciplined disproportionately.  It is a system in which schools across the country outsource their disciplinary obligations to local law enforcement.

It is a system in which children are placed unnecessarily into correctional facilities.  Those experiences are shaping their own conception of who they are, often leading to a pattern of behavior that will land them in prison again and again.

Here’s how it works (in part):

Challenges Facing Certain Groups Of Students:

The school-to-prison pipeline does not necessarily start with bad behavior on the part of a student.  Behaviors that might lead to harsh punishment often begin with disadvantages that certain students face, and failures of schools to recognize and correct for these disadvantages.  Example of these groups include:

Students of color disproportionately facing:

• low income home situations
• lower academic expectations
• discrimination manifested in disciplinary measures and social relationships (feeling threatened)
• language barriers

LGBTQ+ Students disproportionately facing:

• harsh treatment from peers
• victimization, and blaming as victims
• negative social atmosphere
• disciplinary tactics

Low-income students facing:

• less engagement from home, often due to busy working parents or problems at home
• lower academic expectations
• lack of preparation
• stress from home, for example due to missed meals, lack of medical care
• less extracurricular enrichment

Students with disabilities disproportionately facing:

• placement in alternative disciplinary schools
• lower academic expectations
• spending time outside of the regulate classroom
• referral to law enforcement

Removal From School/Harsh Treatment:

So then, certain groups of students are systematically facing an institutional environment that has too often left them behind.  In many, many situations, it is barriers such as these that lead to the kinds of behaviors that schools have to discipline.  But at this point in the pipeline, we must look at how schools choose to discipline students to see how this worsens the issue.

In the 2011-2012 school year, schools sent around 260,000 students to law enforcement, with 92,000 students arrested on school property.  Suspensions and expulsions rose over the last ten years, pushing students out of school and building extra barriers to success.

Data indicates that these removals from school are often due to trivial misbehavior, and not violent behavior.  That data holds up when looking at students detained in the juvenile justice system as well.

Students involved with drugs are also pushed out of school rather than being properly treated for addiction, or otherwise rehabilitated.

Labelling Theory:

When schools choose to send students out of school and into the criminal justice system due to trivially breaking regulation, they do these children a major injustice.  Not every student can be disciplined and kept in school, but many can.

Schools are not addressing the underlying challenges facing these students and their methods of discipline are not rehabilitating them.  Instead, they are taking these children by the arm and dragging them into a mindset that says, “I’m a criminal.”

There is absolutely no need for this.

With these circumstances, it isn’t hard to see how the school-to-prison pipeline works.  This cannot go on, the underlying issues must be understood and addressed, and schools must find a way to actually help these kids, not send them straight through the pipeline from school to jail.

(Facts and statistics from American Bar Association study conducted by School to Prison Pipeline Task Force)

(Image Credit: www.hamline.edu)