School-To-Prison Pipeline
Introduction
The term “school-to-prison pipeline” STTP is a term that was coined by educators and lawyers and has been used for the past 20 years to describe how harsh disciplinary policies lead young people into the criminal justice system. It has been a citizen to imprisoning instead of educating young students. Its tough-on-crime policy nature has inspired the increase in incarceration, mostly black and brown people. Young students are increasingly coming into contact with the criminal justice system in their schools due to harsh disciplinary actions resulting in expulsions or suspensions and consequently increasing high school dropout rates.
Background
Zero-tolerance policies made by legislators inspired the school-to-prison pipeline; the plans were meant to children from disruption and violence; nevertheless, the systems do quite the opposite (Barnes & Motz 2018). Zero tolerance policies have racially divided schools in America, consequently leading to more African Americans young students being expelled out of school than any other race. With no support and obscene future after the expulsion, these young people turn into a life of crime and end up in prison. The American K-12 education system has a double standard of discipline for students of particularly of African American origin, thereby providing a chance for abusing zero-tolerance policies.
Thesis
Zero tolerance is a political media meme that assumes that all social problems are issues of security. Understanding is uncompromising, strict, and automatic punishment to eradicate unwanted conduct. Although the definition of the term is within the confines of the law and human rights, it is being misused in a racially biased way.
School to prison pipeline and its effects
A zero-tolerance policy is an example of exclusionary discipline. The policy sets out consequences or punishments for particular offenses. The system was initiated in the early 1980s to reduce the use of illicit substances in schools. The policy has been extended over the years to include the Gun-Free Schools Act to combat the usage of guns in school. Currently, it comprises predetermined punishments for violent and nonviolent offenses. The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 required all states receiving federal funding to enact a state law requiring all local education agencies to expel for at least one year any student in possession of a gun in school (George, 2016).
The school-to-prison pipeline is based on the increased use of zero-tolerance discipline policy, school-based arrest, and secure detention to marginalized most at-risk students. It denies them the chance of access to education. Implementation of the zero-tolerance system inspired the increase of School Resource Officers (SROs) in schools and subsequent criminalization of student behavior. According to a Justice Policy Institute Report, there was a 38% increase in the number of SROs between 1997 and 2017 due to the increased implementation of zero-tolerance policies. The policies require that the discipline measures used in school set up are similar to those used in law enforcement (Barnes & Motz 2018). This implies that traditional disciplinary actions, such as detention or counseling, are being replaced. SROs have set up camps in schools across the nation, and the definition of what is regarded as a crime, as opposed to a teachable moment has changed tremendously.
Reasons students end up in Juvenile.
There are several reasons as to why many young people are ending up in the juvenile justice system unjustly. The journey to the juvenile justice system begins with insufficient resources in public schools. Many children undergo a second rate educational environment in which they are confined into overcrowded classrooms, inadequate education services, adequate funding, and learning materials. This failure to meet the necessary educational requirements if the children fuels dropout, which consequently increases the rate of court involvement because the youth are likely to involve in criminal activities. Moreover, some schools may encourage students to drop out due to pressure from test-based accountability regimes, which make up incentives to push out low-performing students to improve overall test scores (George, 2016).
The main reason why the youth are ending up in the juvenile justice system is since many schools have implemented the zero-tolerance policy and other extreme disciplinary actions that push students out of school. In response to violence, school disciplinary policies have become increasingly grave. Not only have these policies been implemented at the level schools but also the district and state level (Fox, 2019). Educational institutions should focus on learning and teaching. However, today’s institutions focus on punishment, violence, and misbehavior of the students. Implementation of the zero-tolerance policy has therefore shifted focus from ensuring the safety and security of students and educators to discrimination of black students.
Racial discrimination
Across the United States, black students are three times more likely to be discriminated against as mentally retarded as their white counterparts. Due to this stereotype, black students are likely to be segregated from their non-disabled peers. Once the students have been separated, the school applies the zero-tolerance policy selectively with severe consequences on black students who commit minor disciplinary offenses. The students are handed over the SROs, who, in turn, force the students into the juvenile justice system (George, 2016).
While African-American accounts of 18% of students in a sample of 72000 students, that make up about 46 % of students that have been suspended once, 39% of students expelled, and 36% of students arrested on campus. School-to-prison pipeline is an issue whose impact cuts across society (Barnes & Motz 2018). It is important to note that it does not only affect the incarcerated students and their parents but the community as a whole.
An African-American high school student is suspended for using a cell phone or an iPod in class. In contrast, a white student with a similar disciplinary history in the same school is detained for using headphones. This is blatant racial abuse, and the school administration should focus on the disciplinary issue, not the race. Moreover, two students set off a fire alarm in the same school district. One of them, an African-American kindergartener, is suspended for nine days; the other, a white ninth grade, is suspended for one day. The problem with this scenario is the school education system teaching African-American student’s racism at a very young age, which is likely to increase the school-to-prison pipeline.
Black students face harsher disciplinary action and are more likely to be expelled out of school than whites are. Teachers and parents seem to deliberate that zero policies may be in contravention of civil rights. Over the past four years, the OCR has received more than 1200 complaints of civil rights violations from the public resulting from school discipline. The majority of the students being targeted are blacks.
School-to-prison pipeline is a widespread issue that is affecting schools across the nations. Most often, a student is suspended, expelled, and even arrested for minor infractions. African-America males from inner cities are the majority targeted by zero-tolerance policies. Law enforcers are aware these students do not have the resources to hire lawyers to help them in courts, and with prisons receiving funding, inner-city black males have no chance unless the policies are reformed.
Solutions
There has been an increasing trend in the United States education system concerning combating behavioral problems and violence. School systems have introduced law enforcement involvement and institutionalized harsh zero-tolerance policies. Currently, the school-to-prison pipeline policy has three factors; sorting, criminal; and economic policy (Leamon Robinson, 2018). The system is coined by inter-institutionalized actions and collective discrimination for students of color at high rates. These three factors influence the basis through which structural racism flourishes and expose cumulative inequality on the students of color.
Moreover, zero-tolerance policies are not the only factor. Instead, education “tracking” is almost equally a significant component of the pipeline. The term education “tracking” is used frequently in the American education system and is described as the act of segregating students into their ability groups as outlined in the famed “Gifted and Talented Education (GATE)” program. Proponents of the education tracking assert that separating students into homogenous groups permits for more customized instructions and result in more effective institutions. This is beneficial to high achievers since they are not held back, and the low achievers do not fall behind. However, education tracking is harmful, particularly to minority students who are always put in “not gifted” tracks (Sapp & Karla, 2018). The tracking system still segregates students into low, middle, and high socioeconomic classes. This regularly leads to stipulating disruptive behavior and nurture low self-esteem in the classroom, inspiring these classes to closely monitored than others.
The type of offenses that feed students into the school-to-prison pipeline and are being incarcerated due to the zero-tolerance policies do not pose any danger to public safety. Most often, students always find themselves in courts for behaviors that, in the adult system, adults would not even be jailed for. Zero-tolerance policies instead is an institutional epidemic that incriminates students of suffering from a disability, color, and the LGBT community at a higher disproportionate rate compared to white students. Black young students are overrepresented in prisons in the United States (Sapp & Karla, 2018). From the year 2001 to 2015, young black students were then six times likely y to be imprisoned as young white students. A 2016 report for the Sentencing Project revealed that both black and white students are roughly expected to carry weapons, get into fights, steal property, and use and sell illicit drugs. That is, black and white youths behave in similar ways; however, black juveniles are tremendously incarcerated.
A percentage of the financial resources used to jail young people can be diverted towards achieving holistic solutions that will offer all youths an opportunity to thrive. According to (Knefel, 2017), on any given night in the United States in 2015, at least 47, 000 youths were jailed, 73% were in for nonviolent offenses, 69% were youths of color, and about 1,000 were held in adult prisons. A report by The Black Women’s Justice Institute revealed that black girls were more than five times more likely white girls to be suspended from school. Although black girls only comprised 16% of the female student population in the United States public schools, they consist of 43% of girls who were referred to law enforcement and 38% of those arrested.
Zero tolerance policies subject students with disabilities and those with color to disproportionate treatment; hence, the negative consequences of punitive discipline by law enforcement leave a more significant mark on students of color, sexual orientation, and disabilities. There have also been cases of students with autism being handcuffed due to the behaviors related to their disability (Williams, 2016). For example, a ten-year-old was being bullied, and after reporting his ordeal with staff on several occasions, he opted to self-defense from the bully in the playground. Young people who have autism may not understand what is and what is not socially acceptable. He hit the bully, and he was arrested and put in a juvenile detention center and charged with criminal mischief and battery. It is terrible traumatizing for ten years old to be arrested and put in detention. Children at ten years past may not understand what is going on, and besides, he was detained for defending himself against bullies. Law enforcement is not being sensitive and realistic to the needs disabilities of students. Racism has put people of color to the lowest social status in American society, and zero-tolerance policy has fuelled discrimination of the blacks.
Additionally, the legislature has recently reduced the impact of zero-tolerance policies by reducing the power of judges to impose these punitive punishments on minor offenses. For example, in 2013, Maryland passed a bill that prohibited out-of-home placement for minor infractions that are likely to take place in schools, including possession of marijuana, trespass, and disorderly conduct.
Home placement is essential for the welfare of students and the interest of general public safety. The bill has been hailed as being a step closer to ensure rehabilitation of all youths in the juvenile criminal justice system and ending the harsh treatment of detaining young students in the adult criminal justice system. The Maryland law is an essential step towards preventing the school-to-prison pipeline for minor offenses (Williams, 2016). Despite its shortcomings, the Maryland bill offers an excellent model that other states should imitate. It inspires juvenile courts to discover rehabilitative solutions for youths charged with disciplinary offenses. Such actions are geared towards reducing the school-to-prison pipeline.
Although many schools have adopted more conflict resolution practices and reduced the involvement of law enforcement in dealing with disciplinary matters, there is a greater need for staff (Sapp & Karla, 2018). Increasing staff to student ratio and training the staff members on how to handle complex disciplinary issues can help implement programs that allow students to remain school and not prison. Many public high schools in the United States hire counselors and therapists to counsel students and parents where the pipeline may be involved.
To prevent the inflow of students into the school-to-prison pipeline, schools should develop a model based on reflection and rehabilitation instead of harsh zero-tolerance policies (Leamon Robinson, 2018). Youth engagements incorporate liberations leading to socio-political development. Additionally, liberation psychology extends to challenge convectional approaches with four components; (1) sense of agency, (2) societal involvement behavior, (3) worldview and social analysis, and (4) opportunity structure.
When students are allowed to resolve conflicts through conversations that involve themselves, the teachers, parents, and other students, they tend to understand their issues better. This model has proven to be beneficial and restorative in behavior (Williams, 2016). Young people appreciate that critical consciousness is an integral part of their development, additionally, giving students a sense of agency by having conversations themselves, with little mediation from parents and teachers, enables the students to take charge of the situation they placed themselves into as a result of disciplinary actions.
Since the founding of the United States, the American culture and society have enabled racism to place people of color to the bottom of social rank. With previous forms of discrimination such as slavery, a minority have felt oppressed more than the majority. Although separate but equal is no longer in law, it has an essential role in structural racism. This is harmful since structural racism is not often recognized in the criminal justice system. In the school-to-prison pipeline, structural racism reveals itself. It is not related to a single factor or practice but instead of intersecting lines undereducated and over-jail minority students of color at an unequal rate compared to a white student.
Conclusion
To ensure that all students receive equal opportunity in access to education, in a way, which maintains student’s interest in their future, it is essential to shift away from zero-tolerance policies, which cause the school-to-prison pipeline. The American education system should redesign its policies related to punishment, apply approaches that train, and prepare the school staff to handle disruptive students (Leamon Robinson, 2018). Improving community services in urban and suburban areas and integrating students in the process is likely to develop future possibilities for all students and no longer violate student’s interest in their future.
Since the criminal justice system is motive focused, they fail to recognize the personal needs of the school-to-prison pipeline and consequently increase high school dropout rates. Even without regard to the justice system, inadequate policies and practices deny black students the chance to move out of their class and pushes them from school to prison. Equal protection needs to be provided mainly by those impacted by the pipeline; this will likely decrease the school-to-prison pipeline.
References
Barnes, J. C., & Motz, R. T. (2018). Reducing racial inequalities in adulthood arrest by reducing disparities in school discipline: Evidence from the school-to-prison pipeline. Developmental Psychology, 54(12), 2328.
Fox, V. J. (2019). “Never Again”: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Melbourne in the 1990s. Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History, (116), 215-240.George, J. (2016). Populating the pipeline: school policing and the persistence of the school-to-prison pipeline. Nova Law Review, 40(3), 6.
Leamon Robinson, R. (2018). Searching for the Parental Causes of the School-to-Prison Pipeline Problem: A Critical, Conceptual Essay. JCR & Econ. Dev., 32, 31.
Sapp, D., & Karla, L. (2018). Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline: Meeting the Needs of Students of Color Placed At Risk.
Williams, J. A. (2016). Separate but Unequal: The Desegregation of Louisiana Public Schools through the School-to-Prison Pipeline. J. Race Gender & Poverty, 8, 167.