...The School to Prison Pipeline: The Criminalization of American Students The School to Prison Pipeline: The Criminalization of American Students Kimberly N. Wright Western Governors University Introduction Your permanent record! The thing that was held over most of our heads when we were in school. Your teacher or maybe your parents threatened that your bad behavior was going to end up on your “permanent record” and ruin your life. We shrugged them off, thought they were being dramatic or crazy and didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately for some students, the School to Prison Pipeline is making the threat of a bad permanent record all too real, as well as the consequences behind it. What is happening? Research suggests that The School to Prison Pipeline is damaging to students because it disproportionately affects poor, minority, and special needs students and is supported by unfairly applied disciplinary policies like “zero tolerance” and the standardized testing requirements backed by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The School to Prison Pipeline, or Cradle to Prison Pipeline as some may refer to it as is the set of rules and policies that are currently funneling school children into the juvenile and criminal court systems. While order is needed in classrooms, the School to Prison Pipeline is a disservice to students and society given that these policies heavily impact special needs, minority, and poor students. With the...
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...In “Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline,” Johanna Wald and Daniel Losen discuss the phenomenon known to observers, advocates, and educators as the prison track, or the school-to-prison pipeline. This appallingly racist system funnels minority youth into the for-profit, industrialized prison system, which was designed to maintain the racial status quo, to replace slavery in all but name, and to cripple the minority vote to ensure its persistence. Recent trends in educational policy have made this school-to-prison pipeline a nigh-inevitable consequence for disenfranchised youth of color, despite the considerable evidence that American educational policy is terrible. American students lag behind their international peers in...
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...The School-to-prison pipeline is an injustice to the United States as a whole. This issue is something I hold very dear to me because of how close it is to home. As a student at a Majority-minority school, the pipeline is a prevalent factor in my life. The fact that the young men I have walked beside and lead, are targeted by this systemic form of oppression is disheartening. I can see it happening to my cousins at ages 3 and up, but they can't. They are not aware that they are being taught by uneducated educators who have already developed biases towards them. They are not aware that they victimize themselves be simply playing on the playground. They are not aware that they are involved in a district that fires educators for calling them...
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...This week’s readings talked a lot about the Prison School Pipeline, and the education system. After reading the articles I found myself questioning the education system, and how we educate children and young adults from kindergarten to graduate school. Herbert discussed the prison pipeline, and how our youth is being broken down and mistreated. Children and young adults are being arrested and incarcerated, for doing things which in the past wouldn’t have led to police intervention. The consequences of the prison pipeline are endless, per Herbert we are creating criminals. Herbert stated that after forcing children into the criminal justice system for small misdemeanors, they experience a prefatory course in behavior that is criminal. Thus,...
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...Gonsoulin, S., Zablocki, M., & Leone, P. E. (2012). Safe Schools, Staff Development, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Teacher Education and Special Education,35(4), 309-319. doi:10.1177/0888406412453470 This article discusses the best practices in school staff development in an attempt to change school management and discipline practices. It explains that changing school culture and replacing it with systems that supports youth development and minimizing punitive, ineffective responses to behavior problems in challenging, but not impossible. Also, the article touches base on areas discussing: The importance of providing effective staff development, professional learning communities, the Denver plan: a model for three-tiered staff development,...
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...Describe a Case The school to prison pipeline is a societal issue. The school to prison pipeline is also an issue in the field of social work as well. My case is based from Wilson article, (2014), Turning off the School-to-Prison Pipeline. As a social worker I will encounter many situations regarding adolescents having difficulties staying in school. The alarming factor of the school to prison pipeline is the disparity between racial groups, specifically black students. Wilson article discuss many issues with the school to prison pipeline and solutions. Research suggest that community interventions are the best solution to the school to prison pipeline (Wilson, 2014). For example, training teachers on different cultures and back grounds,...
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...School to prison pipeline “A child miseducated is a child lost.”(former president John F. Kennedy) The term school to prison pipeline describes how American kids are pushed out of schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice system. Most public school system follows the zero tolerance policy, which punishes any violation of rules regardless of circumstance. The implementation of this policy in public schools has led to increase in suspensions, expulsions and in school arrest. These sanctions have a negative effect on students by keeping them away from school. For instance, their grades suffer, label as problematic students, and become disengaged in education. These students are being held back a grade, some dropout of school and...
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...Risk factors that coincide with the School-to-Prison Pipeline The way the School-to-Prison Pipeline generally works is that is tends to focus on low-income minority students and families. Those students who are lucky enough to be born to a white family, and in a higher SES neighborhood are less likely to feel the effects of SPP. A result of this long-standing problem, SPP, it has created a culture within these populations that being involved in the court system at an early age is the norm. An article in the journal Rethinking Schools, it quotes an eleventh grade African American student from California stating, “Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it does matter what I do, how hard I try – that’s my fate, too”(editors...
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...School discipline feeds the “pipeline to prison”: As school discipline moves from the principal’s office to the courthouse In the article from Phi Delta Kappan (October 2011), School discipline feeds the “pipeline to prison”: As school discipline moves from the principal’s office to the courthouse, the author, Deborah Fowler, takes the stance that schools in Texas and other states have been historically safe for students and teachers even before it was commonplace for law enforcement officers to be assigned to them. The author states that since the release of the motion picture “The Blackboard Jungle” more than fifty years ago, popular media has fed the public’s concerns about juvenile delinquency. (Fowler, 2011) Fowler further states that those fears by the public are not supported by historical data, which document very few incidents involving youth and weapons in the nation’s public schools from the 1950’s to the present. Publicity around “isolated incidents” of school violence such as the Columbine shootings has increased the fears of the public as it pertains to violence in our schools. (Fowler, 2011) The author concentrates on the state of Texas in her article and cites that minor offenses such as class disruption have been criminalized, with students receiving Class C misdemeanor tickets each year. Fowler points out that historically the nation’s schools have been safe to include those in high-crime areas. School discipline has become more punitive in...
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...similar to my question, “How is School to Prison Pipeline affecting juveniles around the United States?”. In 2009, Heirtzeg wrote an article called Education or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies and the School to Prison Pipeline. 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 and label “criminals”. Racial minorities and children with disabilities are the two major groups of students who are caught...
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...In Matt Zalaznick’s article, “Closing the school-to-prison Pipeline”, he talks about a new system that the educators of King’s Junior High School is trying out. Their new system is a way to act on behavioral issues, based on a points system. “Behavior Intervention Points” is what they are calling them and the more a student receives the more sever the punishment. Four points leads to a parent teacher meeting, eight points results in parents and students meeting with administrators of the school, and so on. Before, they had a zero-tolerance policy, which is ideal in situations that are extreme, such as: weapons and drugs, but not so ideal when you have no set way of disciplining a child for inappropriate behavior or disrespect. Since this new...
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...After reading the first chapter of, Being Bad: My Baby Brother and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, I found it relatable in my own family and the circumstances they faced. When reading about Chris’ situation I didn’t feel bad for him. Considering how irresponsible he was, Chris never owned up to his mistakes. He expects his mother or sister to cover up his actions until the next time he gets in trouble with the law. Chris doesn’t realize there are consequences in the situations he makes. He was spoon fed all the time by his mother who was always there to bail him out and put her marriage on the line for her son’s actions. However, I did feel awful for him after his roommate called the police on him for stealing just a pair of jeans. His roommate...
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...This paper describes the process, which lead to the school-to-prison pipeline concept. The changes that came about in the educational policies and disciplinary practices have enhanced the success of the school-to-prison pipeline concept in the Public Schools across the United States. During the 80’s, the war on drugs and cruel sentencing laws lead to an increase ratio of incarceration per capita in the United States. After the 80’s era, the 90’s brought about a zero-tolerance policy. Law enforcement was used as a solution versus the traditional measures to handle disciplinary problems by the school administration. As a result of this approach, many schools were treated as sheltered facilities which overtime lead to increased disciplinary conduct. The increase sentencing of minor offense by juveniles supported what is now referred to as the industrial prison of complex. Private prisons today, have become big business supported by the judiciary system in its sentencing and are evident by the increase sentencing of young offenders. This paper describes the connection between prison construction and the criminalization of students. In conclusion, this report will look at some policies and initiatives that have formed the school-to-prison pipeline initiative. In researching this topic, I will show the measure from the fact sheet of how North Carolina fair from School-to-Prison Pipeline. I totally find the school-to-prison pipeline to be an injustice to our youth and our society. ...
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...are targets of the cradle to prison/school to prison pipeline. This is one of the many challenges and stigmas that minority youth are encountered with on a daily basis. In a racially stratified society, there are certain ideas, racial stereotypes and norms that affect our meaning making and decision-making. These biases are roots in our subconscious behaviors, our implicit reactions to individuals based upon latent, involuntary preconceptions (Morris, 2012). Schools have low expectations for low income students and students of color (Fiester, 2010). Minority youth predominately live in impoverished neighborhoods and attend underprivileged schools. Unless, their families are college educated; many minorities face generational poverty. Generational poverty is defined as a family having lived in poverty for at least two generations. Children who face generational poverty lack adequate resources such as: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, higher education, and adequate funds....
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...Bias, along with stereotypes and individual experiences, shapes how the life of an individual will turn out. A person with positive experiences in school and home along with the help he or she needs to succeed, he or she will avoid the school-to-prison pipeline and lead a more productive life. Whereas, a person with poor experiences in one or both environments and with little to no help needed to succeed, one might fall into the school-to-prison pipeline and not reach his or her full potential. Some examples of poor experiences include being seen as a bad kid (whether it be because of a learning difference or background), struggling because of the lack of help or misused resources, falling into the wrong crowds, and many more. The lack or poor use of support and our biases...
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