School To Prison Pipeline

Published on American Civil Liberties Union (https://www.aclu.
org)
What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline? [1]

The "school-to-prison pipeline" refers to the policies and practices that push
our nation's schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of
classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline
reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing
number of students, the path to incarceration includes the "stops" below.
Failing Public Schools

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, and even
textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This
failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts,
increasing the risk of later courtinvolvement. (1) 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. (2)
Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

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
beenexpelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school. Rates
of suspensionhave increased dramatically in recent yearsfrom 1.7 million in
1974 to 3.1 million in 2000 (3) and have been most dramatic for children of
color.
Overly harsh disciplinary policies push students down the pipeline and into
the juvenile justice system. Suspended and expelled children are often left
unsupervised and without constructive activities; they also can easily fall
behind in their coursework, leading to a greater likelihood of disengagement
and drop-outs. All of these factors increase the likelihood of court
involvement. (4)
As harsh penalties for minor misbehavior become more pervasive, schools
increasingly ignore or bypass due process protections for suspensions and
expulsions. The lack of due process is particularly acute for students with
special needs, who are disproportionately represented in the pipeline despite
the heightened protections afforded to them under law.
Policing School Hallways

Many under-resourced schools become pipeline gateways by
placing increased reliance on police rather than teachers and administrators
to maintain discipline. Growing numbers of districts employ school resource
officers to patrol school hallways, often with little or no training in working
with youth. As a result, children are far more likely to be subject to schoolbased arreststhe majority of which are for non-violent offenses, such as
disruptive behaviorthan they were a generation ago. The rise in schoolbased arrests, the quickest route from the classroom to the jailhouse, most
directly exemplifies the criminalization of school children.
Disciplinary Alternative Schools

In some jurisdictions, students who have been suspended or expelled have no
right to an education at all. In others, they are sent to disciplinary
alternative schools.
Growing in number across the country, these shadow systemssometimes run
by private, for-profit companiesare immune from educational accountability
standards (such as minimum classroom hours and curriculum requirements)
and may fail to provide meaningful educational services to the students who
need them the most. As a result, struggling students return to their regular
schools unprepared, are permanently locked into inferior educational settings,
or are funneled through alternative schools into the juvenile justice system.
Court Involvement and Juvenile Detention
Youth who become involved in the juvenile justice system are often denied
procedural protections in the courts; in one state, up to 80% of court-involved
children do not have lawyers. (5) Students who commit minor offenses may
end up in secured detention if they violate boilerplate probation conditions
prohibiting them from activities like missing school or disobeying teachers.
Students pushed along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention
facilities, many of which provide few, if any, educational services. Students of
color who are far more likely than their white peers to be suspended,
expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct at school (6) and those
with disabilities are particularly likely to travel down this pipeline. (7)
Though many students are propelled down the pipeline from school to jail, it
is difficult for them to make the journey in reverse. Students who enter the
juvenile justice system face many barriers to their re-entry into traditional
schools. The vast majority of these students never graduate from high school.
Endnotes
1. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on School Health, "Out-ofSchool Suspension and Expulsion," PEDIATRICS (Vol. 112 No. 5, Nov.
2003), p. 1207. See also: Johanna Wald & Dan Losen, "Defining and Redirecting a School-to-Prison Pipeline," NEW DIRECTIONS FOR
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (No. 99, Fall 2003), p. 11.
2. David N. Figlio "Testing, Crime and Punishment," JOURNAL OF
PUBLIC ECONOMICS (Vol. 90 Iss. 4-5, May 2006).
3. Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN: THE
SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 15.
4. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on School Health, "Out-ofSchool Suspension and Expulsion," PEDIATRICS (Vol. 112 No. 5, Nov.
2003), p. 1207. See also: Johanna Wald & Dan Losen, "Defining and Redirecting a School-to-Prison Pipeline," NEW DIRECTIONS FOR
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (No. 99, Fall 2003), p. 11.
5. ACLU, The Children's Law Center & The Office of the Ohio State Public
Defender, A CALL TO AMEND THE OHIO RULES OF JUVENILE
PROCEDURE TO PROTECT THE RIGHT TO COUNSEL (Jan. 2006), p.
1.
6. Russel J. Skiba, ZERO TOLERANCE, ZERO EVIDENCE (2000), pp. 1112; The Advancement Project & The Civil Rights Project,
OPPORTUNITIES SUSPENDED: THE DEVASTATING
CONSEQUENCES OF ZERO TOLERANCE AND SCHOOL DISCIPLINE
POLICIES (June 2000), pp. 7-9; Russell J. Skiba, et al., THE COLOR OF
DISCIPLINE: SOURCES OF RACIAL AND GENDER
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN SCHOOL PUNISHMENT (2000).
7. David Osher et al., "Schools Make a Difference: The Overrepresentation
of African American Youth in Special Education and the Juvenile Justice
System," RACIAL INEQUITY IN SPECIAL EDUCATION (Daniel J.
Losen & Gary Orfield eds., 2002), p. 98.
2015 ACLU
Source URL: https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/what-school-prison-pipeline
Links
[1] https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/what-school-prison-pipeline

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Published on American Civil Liberties Union (https://www.aclu.

What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline? [1]

Failing Public Schools

Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

Policing School Hallways

Disciplinary Alternative Schools

Court Involvement and Juvenile Detention

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