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The ACLU is committed to challenging the "school-to-prison pipeline," a disturbing national trend wherein youth are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal legal systems. Many of these youth are Black or Brown, have disabilities, or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, and would benefit from additional supports and resources. Instead, they are isolated, punished, and pushed out.

"Zero-tolerance" policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while cops in schools lead to students being criminalized for behavior that should be handled inside the school. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline. Related Resources

The ACLU believes that children should be educated and supported in schools, not incarcerated. We are working to challenge numerous policies and practices within public school systems and the juvenile justice system that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.

For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the "stops" below.

Failing Public Schools
For most students, the pipeline begins withinadequate 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 court involvement. (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 been expelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school. Rates of suspension have increased dramatically in recent years-from 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 disabilities, 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 police 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 school-based arrests-the majority of which are for non-violent offenses, such as disruptive behavior-than they were a generation ago. The rise in school-based 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 systems-sometimes run by private, for-profit companies-are 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-of-School Suspension and Expulsion," PEDIATRICS (Vol. 112 No. 5, Nov. 2003), p. 1207. See also: Johanna Wald & Dan Losen, "Defining and Re-directing 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-of-School Suspension and Expulsion," PEDIATRICS (Vol. 112 No. 5, Nov. 2003), p. 1207. See also: Johanna Wald & Dan Losen, "Defining and Re-directing 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. 11-12; 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.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline | American Civil Liberties Union

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The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

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ZERO TOLERANCE DISCIPLINE, DISCRIMINATION, AND THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

The School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) is a nationwide system of local, state, and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of schoolÂ and into the criminal justice system. The system disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities. Inequities in areas such as school discipline, policing practices, high-stakes testing, wealth and healthcare distribution, school "grading" systems, and the prison-industrial complex all contribute to the Pipeline. The STPP operates directly and indirectly. Directly, schools send their students into the Pipeline through zero tolerance policies, and involving the police in minor discipline incidents. All too often school rules are enforced through metal detectors, pat-downs and frisks, arrests, and referrals to the juvenile justice system. And schools pressured to raise graduation and testing numbers can sometimes artificially achieve this by pushing out low-performing students into GED programs and the juvenile justice system. Indirectly, schools push students towards the criminal justice system by excluding them from the learning environment and isolating them from their peer groups through suspension, expulsion, ineffective retention policies, transfers, and high-stakes testing requirements.

THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE DID NOT CORRESPOND WITH AN INCREASE IN SCHOOL VIOLENCE.

Crimes against and by youth were actually declining before zero tolerance policies took hold.[1] Zero Tolerance policies directly and indirectly feed the Pipeline

Schools rely on suspension, expulsion, citations, summonses, and arrests to handle disciplinary problems like bringing cell phones and ipods to school, smoking cigarettes, and skipping class. Students who might easily be disciplined through a visit to the principal's office end up in jail cells-this is the essence of the Pipeline[2]

Criminal charges are brought against youth in schools for violations that never would be considered criminal if committed by an adult

Suspensions indirectly feed the Pipeline

A child who has been suspended is more likely to fall behind in school, be retained a grade, drop out of high school, commit a crime, and become incarcerated as an adult[3]

The best demographic indicators of children who will be suspended are not the type or severity of the crime, but the color of their skin, their special education status, the school they go to, and whether they have been suspended before[4]

The Pipeline limits opportunities for our most vulnerable youth

Zero tolerance and suspensions disproportionately affect students of color and those with learning disabilities

Black students represented only 17% of national public school enrollment in 2000 but accounted for 34% of suspensions[5]

Special education students represent 8.6% of public school students, but 32% of youth in juvenile detention nationwide[6]

Black students with learning disabilities are three times more likely to be suspended than white students with learning disabilities and four times more likely to end up in correctional facilities[7]

School disciplinary, juvenile, and criminal records work against disadvantaged students when they apply for colleges, scholarships, jobs, and selective high schools.

In many places, having a criminal record can prevent students and their families from living in public housing[8]

Solutions

Invest in education rather than the far more costly corrections system
In 2004, the federal government spent $60 million to hire police forces for schools and $19.5 million on school safety equipment such as metal detectors[9]

Begin exploring successful, non-punitive discipline models such as peer mediation, conflict resolution, truth and reconciliation committees, guidance counseling, mentoring, teacher training and support, and parental and community involvement initiatives to reduce conflict in schools

Allow students to have a role in designing school discipline codes. When students understand the reasons for rules and take ownership of them they are more likely to conform their behavior[10]

Click here to download graph of Percentage of U.S. Prison Population vs. Total U.S. Population by Race (PDF).
Click here to download graph of U.S. Percentage of Worldwide Prisoners vs. U.S. Percentage of Worldwide Population (PDF). Footnotes [1] The Advancement Project (March 2005). Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, p. 11. [2] NCYLU (March 2007), Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-policing of New York City Schools [3] The Advancement Project (2000). Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline, p. 13. [4] Russel Skiba and M. Karega Rausch (2003), Zero Tolerance, Suspension, and Expulsion: Questions of Equity and Effectiveness [5] The Advancement Project (March 2005). Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, p. 18. [6] NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline, p. 5. [7] Building Blocks for Youth (2000), And Justice for Some. [8] The Advancement Project (March 2005). Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, p. 12.
[9] The Advancement Project (March 2005). Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, p. 17.

[10] NYCLU, Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and Make the Road New York (July 2009), Safety with Dignity: Alternatives to the Over-Policing of Schools.

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The School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) is a nationwide system of local, state, and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of schoolÂ and into the criminal justice system. The system disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities.

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The school-to-prison pipeline refers to practices and policies that disproportionately place students of color into the criminal justice system. The biased application of harsh disciplinary measures and overuse of referrals to law enforcement contribute to the problem, setting up vulnerable students for failure and ignoring the underlying causes.

How can educators end the school-to-prison pipeline? The first step is considering an alternative approach to school discipline.

To learn more, check out the infographic created by American University's Doctorate in Education Policy & Leadership program.

The Dangers of Zero-Tolerance Policies

Zero-tolerance policies stem from the war on drugs and strict crime laws that greatly increased mass incarceration in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The expansion of such policies to address crime among juveniles and school environments led to what education and social justice advocates now call the school-to-prison pipeline.

The Origin of Zero-Tolerance Policies

Zero-tolerance policies in public schools originated with the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA). Under this act, the punishment for bringing a firearm to school is suspension for at least one academic year. The GFSA's introduction led to the expansion of zero-tolerance policies to encompass other offenses and to increased reporting to law enforcement. Since 1994, school districts have also adopted strict policies that mandate harsh punishment for less serious offenses in an effort to discourage more serious crimes.

The Effects of Zero-Tolerance Policies

Zero-tolerance policies have dramatically increased the number of students who are suspended or expelled. This has led to serious ramifications. For example, students who miss at least 15 days of school in even a single year are seven times more likely to drop out of high school. Students who fail to complete their education are more likely to experience negative outcomes such as poverty, poor health, or time in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, it's been determined that disparities in school discipline contribute to disparities in the learning opportunities. It's also been determined that Black students miss almost five times as many days of instruction as a result of out-of-school suspensions compared with white students.

Along the way, schools have hired more school resource officers (SROs), law enforcement professionals who are responsible for student safety and crime prevention. The increased placement of SROs has led to increases in the number of students arrested, as well as the number of referrals to law enforcement and juvenile courts.

Who Is Most Affected by The School-to-Prison Pipeline?

The statistics paint a bleak picture: students from marginalized groups are the greatest risk of being drawn into the school-to-prison pipeline.

Risk Factors for Juvenile Involvement in the Justice System

There are different risk factor tiers concerning juvenile involvement in the justice system. Individual risk factors include antisocial behavior, hyperactivity, and substance misuse. Family risk factors include abusive parents, low socioeconomic status, and teen parenthood. Peer risk factors include bullying from peers, gang membership, and weak social ties. School and community factors include impoverished or disorganized communities and poor academic performance.

How Many Students Receive Out-of-School Suspensions?

2.7 million K-12 students received one or more out-of-school suspensions during the 2015-16 school year. This number revealed a disproportionate impact on Black or African American students. While this demographic made up just 8% of both the male and female students, they represented 25% and 14% of their respective gender's out-of-school suspensions.

In comparison, white students received out-of-school suspensions at a rate lower than their enrollment. While 25% of the male student population and 24% of the female student population were white, they only represented 24% and 8% of out-of-school suspensions, respectively.

Among Hispanic or Latinx students, male students received far more out-of-school suspension than female students. Hispanc and Latinx males and females both made up 13% of the student population, but they represented 15% and 6% of out-of-school suspensions, respectively.

How Many Students Do Law Enforcement Referrals and Arrests Impact?

290,600 students were referred to law enforcement agencies or arrested during the 2015-16 school year. Only 15% of students were Black or African American, but these students represented 31% of law enforcement referrals and arrests. 49% of students were white, but these students represented just 36% of law enforcement referrals or arrests. 26% of students were Hispanic or Latinx, and these students represented 24% of law enforcement referrals or arrests.

Why Students of Color are Disproportionately Affected

Students from marginalized communities are more likely to end up in the school-to-prison pipeline because of systemic racism. Also known as structural or institutional racism, systemic racism refers to systems and policies that create and/or maintain racial inequalities.

Disciplinary actions that result in court referrals, suspensions, or expulsions - all of which increase the likelihood of dropping out and entering the juvenile justice system - are disproportionately applied to students of color. Additionally, Black students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct. Furthermore, Black students are suspended or expelled at a rate almost 3.5 times greater than that of white students.

How Students of Color Are Affected

The school-to-prison pipeline causes a disproportionate number of students of color to drop out of school and enter the criminal justice system, which can have life-changing negative effects.

For instance, students who fail to complete high school are more likely to be imprisoned. This gives them a criminal record, which can then make it more difficult to attain housing, build credit, gain employment, and qualify for public assistance. Additionally, students who are convicted of a felony offense face even greater obstacles in finding employment, and they may lose their voting rights and eligibility for financial aid. Students who do not complete high school also go on to earn lower wages compared to peers that graduate.

The Healing Power of Restorative Justice

To help eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline, educators should consider replacing zero-tolerance policies with restorative justice.

A New Approach: Restorative Justice

Restorative justice seeks to understand the underlying causes of misbehavior, repair damage, and build a sense of community. This process breaks down into several restorative practices. The first practice is to address the disciplinary practice disparities by reviewing and monitoring policies and practices to ensure that disciplinary measures are not applied unfairly. The second practice is to create a supportive school environment that focuses on agreement and mediation instead of punishment. The third practice is to utilize professional training and development to develop cultural competence, expand communication skills, address cultural bias, and learn about educational trauma.

A Better Approach

Restorative justice is an alternative approach to school discipline that has the potential to uncover the underlying causes of misbehavior and improve student outcomes. By investing in students' health and well-being, educators are investing in this country's future.

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Who is Most Affected by the School-to-Prison Pipeline

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Explore the racial discrepancies fortified within the school-to-prison pipeline, and learn how restorative justice aims to undo the damage of this divide.

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The school to prison pipeline is threatening the fabric of our American society by placing an emphasis on juveniles entering into the criminal justice system for minor offenses. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund depicts the pipeline as "funneling of students out of school and into the streets and the juvenile correction system perpetuates a cycle known as the 'School-to-Prison-Pipeline,' depriving children and youth of meaningful opportunities for education, future employment, and participation in our democracy". This is especially apparent when it comes to examining how minorities (Hispanics and African-Americans) are disciplined in school in comparison to their Caucasian peers. In this post, we highlight the issue of the school to prison pipeline, solutions to dismantle the problem, guiding principles to develop in order for this issue not to persist, and conclude with an effective approach for schools to deal with discipline and prevent the school to prison pipeline from persisting.
Issue
The underlying problem with the school to prison pipeline is the use of court referrals as a means of disciplining kids in schools. Court referrals are the primary factor in kids becoming first time offenders, and inevitably repeat offenders, otherwise known as recidivists. The juvenile justice system is not currently equipped to treat non-violent behavioral issues. Rather, they are herded like cattle into the courts and ensnared in a cycle of the criminal justice system that many never seem to escape.

The second factor in kids entering the juvenile justice system is the widespread overuse of suspensions and expulsions. Numerous studies have shown that suspensions and expulsions have a correlation with high drop-out rates and coming in contact with the juvenile justice system. The racial disparity in discipline procedures implemented within the compulsory education school system is detrimental to a minority's social mobility. African American and Hispanic students are suspended or expelled at a rate almost 3.5 times greater than Caucasian students. Those that support exclusionary discipline argue that students displaying inappropriate behaviors in school should face steadfast regulation. However, research data tells us otherwise. Studies show that in-school and out-of-school suspensions, complete expulsions, and court referral arrests stemming from conduct violations typical in adolescent behavior does not curtail such behaviors. Also included in the research is an indication that African American and Hispanic students are most often disciplined for more subjective offenses, acts such as throwing food, cursing, disobeying a teacher, loitering, or making excessive noise, whereas their Caucasian schoolmates are less likely to be suspended for more concrete offenses that include smoking, skipping school, or vandalism. Suspensions and expulsions present a tremendous cost to our kids, our community and our taxpayers.
Solution
We here at RED cannot state, in good faith, that the solution is an easy one. It is not. Traditional ways of thinking have caused this problem to balloon to seismic proportion. It will take a top to bottom educational reform addressing school environments, disciplinary methods and curriculums. We would like to offer up a few suggestions on things to consider when undertaking this educational overhaul. We believe school administration can start by creating nurturing, positive and safe environments that boost student achievement and success; redesigning discipline policies and practices, properly training staff, and having more engagement with families and implement the use of local resources to help students develop their social and emotional skills; implementing supportive procedures that will allow students to address the underlying causes of misbehavior, such as trauma, substance abuse, mental health issues, academic deficiencies and poverty; adopting restorative justice curriculums to promote social, civic and financial literacy. From reviewing adult incarceration statistics, we know that access to education reduces recidivism. We believe the same holds true with juveniles, so our focus should be on disciplining them while keeping them present, inside the school system and not at home, on the streets, or in our criminal justice system.
Guiding Principles
Individuals interested in reform should be mindful of some guiding principles to facilitate the dismantling of the school to prison pipeline. The following should be considered: a) Engage in deliberate efforts to create a positive "school climate, b) Establish clear and appropriate behavioral expectations and consistent consequences, and c) Equity and continued improvement. Engaging in deliberate efforts to create a positive school climate involves gathering data, prioritizing the use of evidence-based curriculums and prevention strategies, and minimizing law enforcement referrals to the Department of Juvenile Justice. When attempting to establish clear and appropriate behavioral expectations and consistent consequences, we believe schools should focus on promoting a culture of respect within their community, take steps to involve families, students and school personnel in the development and implementation of discipline policies and strategies, discourage bullying or other violent acts, and using the removal of students as a last resort and having the intention of integrating them back into the classroom as soon as possible.

A variation of targeted versus a solely universal educational system is essential to the process of meaningful reform. For example, if a child has an issue with tardiness to school, we may believe it is solely the student's fault and suspend him/her or send him/her to CSI. This is a universal approach. However, what we propose is digging deeper and working to keep the child in the classroom. In the case of the habitually tardy child, that child should be required to stay after class for the equivalent amount of time they arrived late (which affects the child and parents). Then, the parents should be involved to determine if it is more parent or child driven. Studies have shown that African American and Hispanic students are most often disciplined for more subjective offenses. This is targeted. A case by case analysis that focuses on the child's root cause of the behavioral issue. Educational improvement involves evaluating a school's curriculum for fairness of all students, training staff to appropriately apply the policies, and having an effective record-keeping system.
Conclusion
This school to prison pipeline cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all, universal approach. Many students, especially minority students have deeper rooted causes to their behavioral problems. Educational curriculum and educational discipline should include a combination of targeted and universal educational methods. There is no universal solution to a problem that can disguise itself and take on multiple forms. Universal education methods would send the aforementioned example of the tardy child to in-school suspension, and with enough violations it would lead to suspension or even expulsion. Targeting the issue is understanding the root cause. Targeting educational discipline and assessing a student's problem on a case-by-case basis is crucial to understanding each student's dynamic issue and providing the appropriate assistance to meet their needs.

Our former president, Obama, publicly stated that schools that implement policies that disparately impact students of a particular race, color, or nationality violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Our guiding principles align with the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) initiative, a cross-agency collaboration among the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The SS/HS found these principles to be key in creating and sustaining a system of positive discipline and a nurturing, conducive school environment that limits judicial contact for juveniles. Disciplining students and keeping them in the classroom with minimal juvenile justice contact will decrease the funneling of students while increasing graduation rates and improving school safety. With more young men and women graduating and becoming law-abiding, tax-paying workers instead of financial burdens within the justice system funded and paid for with our tax dollars, the dismantling of the school to prison pipeline will become a reality and cease to persist.

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The School To Prison Pipeline - RED - Stop Recidivism

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The school to prison pipeline is threatening the fabric of our American society by placing an emphasis on juveniles entering into the criminal justice system for minor offenses.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.