Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/series/what-are-the-unintended-consequences-of-bad-school-discipline-policies-one-consequence-is-the-channeling-of-fairly-inoffensive-young-people-into-the-criminal-justice-system-the-phenomenon-of-the-sc/)
What are the unintended consequences of bad school discipline policies? One consequence is the channeling of fairly inoffensive young people into the criminal justice system. The phenomenon of the school-to-prison pipeline has advocates and some school boards working to rethink appropriate responses and use of resources when responding to school misbehavior. JJIE has a compiled a selection of articles dealing with the school-to-prison pipeline below:
Growing concern over zero tolerance policies in schools across the country and their contribution to the school-to-prison pipeline has shed light on a common pathway into the juvenile justice system — school misbehavior.
Kayleb Moon-Robinson was 11 years old last fall when charges — criminal charges — began piling up at school.
CALEDONIA, Miss. — Toney Jennings was illiterate when he was arrested at age 16. In the six months he spent at the Lowndes County Jail in eastern Mississippi, he says he played basketball, watched TV and “basically just stayed to myself.”
You’ve heard about the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Now, add to that the “cradle-to-prison pipeline,” the “poverty-to-prison pipeline” and the “prison-to-poverty pipeline.”
A new 25-minute documentary follows the stories of three students in Wake County, N.C., and how a school system pushed them into juvenile and criminal courts.
Latino and black students in California continue to be affected disproportionately by discipline that removes them from classrooms and often leaves them further behind academically.
CHICAGO — Mariame Kaba is the founding director of Project NIA, a Chicago-based nonprofit that supports youth involved in the criminal justice system with a mission to eradicate the incarceration of minors. The organization teaches local schools how to implement peace circles and other dispute mediation measures. The Chicago Bureau spoke to Kaba about what the U.S. Education Department’s newly released guidelines for school discipline, which call for an end to punitive punishment, means for Chicago Public Schools. The Chicago Bureau: Project NIA has always worked in restorative justice in Chicago. Can you tell me more about what you have done in terms of reforming school discipline?
The White House sent a message to schools across the country Wednesday to abandon severe discipline policies shown to criminalize students for infringements that could be handled without law enforcement.
If minority students face harsher punishments than white students for the same school infractions in many schools, as plenty of studies say they do, there are also people who want to change that, and the struggle is happening in courts, in state legislatures, in classrooms and at school board meetings.
South Florida’s Broward County School Board voted unanimously to sign new rules, written by many hands, which are meant to drive down arrests and their unintended consequences in the state’s second most populous school district. The Nov. 5 Memorandum of Understanding approved by the school board has its signatories promise “appropriate responses and use of resources when responding to school-based misbehavior.”