Introduction: In the spring of 1999, I was 9 years old. One day I turned on the television and saw a live news report about the incident at Columbine High School. Two students walked into their high school, killed 12 fellow students and one professor, wounded 23 others and then took their own lives. After this event many schools instituted “No Tolerance” policies in order to try and prevent other incidents. Although there is no clear evidence that these policies have effectively stopped other incidents of this kind, there is evidence that the policies have affected the way other children encounter the educational system. “No Tolerance” policies are one of the many policies that have lead to the school-to-prison. This policy, and others like …show more content…
What exactly is the school-to-prison pipeline?
A. The school-to-prison pipeline refers to various disciplinary policies and practices that lead to the criminalization of children and teens, often for minor offences.
1. In the article Rethinking the School-to-Prison Pipeline, author David Gabbard discusses how these policies and practices have led to a dramatic increase in the rates of suspension, expulsion, and police arrest within schools.
2. These policies and practices often overlook the individuals’ need for extra educational and social assistance.
B. Often the school-to-prison pipeline is more evident in schools within low-income communities.
1. Many schools lack the resources and funds to met the needs of certain students, making it easier to push students.
These policies and practices vary from school to school but they often all stem from the same
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Often these police officers lack the training required to deal with youth, especially those suffering from disabilities.
C. As I mentioned earlier, man of the schools often lack the resources to adequately meet the various needs of their students.
1. Schools often have insufficient funding for items considered to be extras such as counselors, school social workers, and other special education services.
2. Many teachers lack the training needed to identify issues with behavior that result from abuse, poverty, and disabilities.
Despite the idea that these practices disregard, age, gender, and race, studies have shown that some students are disproportionately affected.
III. Those most likely to become involved in the school-to-prison pipeline are African-American males, Latino males, and students suffering from behavioral and educational disabilities.
A. A. Project NIA, a local Chicago based organization, is the leader in researching the affects of the school-to-prison pipeline in Chicago.
1. 1. In their report titled "Policing Chicago Public Schools: A Gateway to the School-to-Prison pipeline", they focused on the type of offenses and the demographics of those arrested on school property within the Chicago Public School
The School-to-Prison Pipeline presents the intersection of a K-12 educational system and a juvenile system, which too often fails to serve our nations at risk youth. For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for "extras" such as counselors, special education services, even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later court involvement (Bennett-Haron, Fasching-Varner, Martin, & Mitchell 2014). Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores (Cramer, Gonzales, & Lafont-Pellegrini 2014). Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances. Under these policies, students have been expelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school (Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson 2005). Rates of suspension have increased dramatically in recent years from 1.7 million in 1998 to 3.1 million in 2010
The school-to-prison pipeline is a devastating part of reality for all too many students. The pipeline in definition is simply a term representing the tendency for certain students to easily end up in prison during or shortly after schooling. To decrease this tendency, it is important that teachers are aware of the issue and that the community as a whole works to implement policies that actually work, and eliminate the ones that strengthen the pipeline. Looking specifically at the pipeline amongst individuals with disabilities, it is evident that the population of
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
In March of 2013 7-year-old Anne Arundel was suspended for biting a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun and then making shooting noises (Chasmar). Arundel was suspended for two days for threatening other students (Chasmar). This is only the beginning of a pipeline that is leading children into prison. The School-to-Prison Pipeline has made it to where students, mainly black and hispanic, are being punished harshly and punished by being expelled or sent to juvenile detention centers which eventually lead to prison.
School to prison pipeline is an upcoming challenge for today's schools on deciding what the punishment should be for students. “a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”Daniel J. Losen & Gary Orfield eds., 2002)
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
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
“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 very bad thing. Children are losing education due to the pipeline. Zero tolerance policies are also not good because students can lose their education due to small things done in class. The pipeline refers to students “is a series of zero-tolerance policies implemented by principals, school boards and state legislatures in response to the 1999 Columbine school shooting” (Lowery, “Clogging the Pipeline”). The zero tolerance policies are policies that “[refer] to strict, uncompromising, automatic punishment to eliminate undesirable behavior” (Wilson, “Tuning off the school-to-prison-pipeline”). The zero tolerance policies are a very bad thing. The zero tolerance policies have been based on the “the assumption that removing students from schools when they behave disruptively will create peaceful learning environments and deter others from engaging in
I have provided a piece of the picture; perceptions based on race and class that project an image of criminality onto students of color. Starting at pre-school ages students of color are tracked into ineffective disciplinary systems in high school, juvenile detention centers, and then adult incarceration. Experiences of school suspension, school disciplinary institutions, and actual incarceration lead towards the erosion of children’s investment in school. Additionally, these students are labeled as criminals, which causes an erosion of public investment in the child’s potential. This policy attends to two components of disrupting the tracking of students of color from entering the school to prison pipeline. Although, the HCZ school system
Disciplinary actions are meant to keep schools safe and free of disruptions from learning. However, schools have adopted harsh zero tolerance policies that result in high numbers of out of school suspensions, expulsions and arrests. A zero tolerance policy is a policy of penalties and punishments for behavioral or code of conduct infractions. The numbers are much greater for Black students. Black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than White students. On average, 16% of Black students are suspended, compared to 5% of White students (Advancement Project, 2010). This paper will seeks to examine how these harsh disciplinary practices under zero tolerance policies in schools are funneling Black students into the
The disproportionate effects of the zero tolerance policy in schools against African American boys and other minority boys have become a focal point in the discussion of the school-to-prison pipeline. The policy was centered on making the school environment safe. Despite its initial intentions, this policy covers more than just weapons and drugs today. Today, this
All around America schools are comprised of more than 90 percent of school aged children (Siegel & Welsh, 2015, p. 364). These juveniles will spend most of their time in these halls where most of their adolescent socialization will take place and their roles or lack of roles will be formulated. It’s not surprising that many of the juvenile delinquency acts will have some tie to either happening in the school or because of school. We must then take a serious look at who it is that is responsible for these acts. When the first classroom bell rings the seats will be taken up by students that come from all backgrounds. Some classes will be comprised of all minorities while others there will only be white faces to be seen. Teachers may know most of the student’s names and stories already as they know their brothers and sisters who were in their classes before them or even have grown up with their parents in a small their small communities. While others will not even bother as their day is comprised of overcrowded classes with students who have no interest in their lectures, much less showing up for class on time if at all.
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.