OP-ED: Shameful Treatment of Children in Meridian, Miss. Is Not the Only Example of School-to-Prison Pipeline

In recent years, juvenile justice advocates, lawyers, policy-makers, and reformers have increasingly sought to raise awareness of the American phenomenon of the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

The term refers generally to the process in which substandard public schools fail to provide adequate support and resources for at-risk children and their families, resulting in high drop-out rates and ultimately leading to court-involvement, detention and incarceration. More specifically, the term refers to the pattern in which students who have committed school-based wrongdoing — whether by pushing another child in the hallway, taking a pencil from a teacher’s desk, or disrupting class — are summarily arrested, charged with violating a criminal offense, and prosecuted in juvenile delinquency court. After a judge finds them delinquent, youth are then placed on probation and court-ordered to comply with a long series of conditions, typically including that they not be suspended (or not be suspended again) from school. In many jurisdictions when a juvenile on probation is suspended — even for a minor infraction at school — the consequences of the violation may include incarceration in a detention center. Research has shown that youth who are disproportionately impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline are likely to be those who are already the most vulnerable: low-income students, children of color, English language learners, youth in foster care, students with disabilities (whether physical, psychological, or developmental), and homeless children.

Bullying Horror Stories: Civil Rights Workers Get Personal

A new anti bullying video is out from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. It focuses on fighting the harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids and those who don’t conform to gender stereotypes about male or female behavior or appearance. The video features several Division employees sharing their childhood struggles with being bullied and harassed. In this short video, the staff was surprisingly candid about not only being attacked by other kids, but by parents and teachers as well. Staffers go on to encourage young people who are bullied and harassed, by letting them know their futures are still bright.