US education orientation for minorities: the school-to-prison pipeline

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/us-education-orientation-minorities

Version 0 of 1.

Back in April of this year, a six-year old African-American girl named Salecia Johnson had a temper tantrum at her school, the Creekside Elementary in Milledgeville, Georgia. By all accounts, it was a pretty intense tantrum that involved lots of screaming and crying, and apparently also involved some property damage as the child "was observed biting the door knob of the office and jumping on the paper shredder". So the school principal did what you do when a six year-old loses the plot: she called the police, who duly arrived, handcuffed the "unruly juvenile", and hauled her off to the local adult jail, where she remained in a holding cell until her parents could be reached.

Salecia was ultimately released without charge and, this time, escaped a criminal record, but was apparently traumatized by the incident and told journalists afterwards that "it hurted" being placed in handcuffs.

This should be the paragraph where I tell you that the above is all a sick joke or a fantasy scenario of what could happen if our nation's schools, particularly schools where there are a lot of minority students, went down the crazy course of using the criminal justice system to enforce discipline or to sort out the behavioral problems of children. But sadly, the incident not only actually happened, but it is also emblematic of a growing trend that has been dubbed the "school to prison pipeline". Despite the overwhelming evidence that sending kids to jail has lifelong negative consequences for them, schools are choosing to do just that. And while, in the past, most children who get caught up in this trend have been a little longer out of diapers than Salecia was, the thinking now seems to be if you are going to put someone on track for a life in and out of prison, you might as well get them started young.

The reliance on law enforcement in some school districts is so out of control and so misapplied that the federal government has had to step in. Earlier this month, the United States department of justice (DOJ) released a report alleging the existence of a school to prison pipeline in a predominately African-American school district in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. In the report, the DOJ claims that children's constitutional rights under the fourth, fifth and 14th amendments are being violated, that they are being arrested and detained without cause and denied their due process rights. The DOJ summed up their findings as follows:

"The department's findings show that children in Lauderdale country have been routinely and repeatedly incarcerated for allegedly committing school disciplinary infractions and are punished disproportionately, without constitutionally required procedural safeguards. Children have also been arrested at school for offenses as minor as defiance. Furthermore, children on probation are routinely arrested and incarcerated for allegedly violating their probation by committing minor school infractions, such as dress code violations, which result in suspensions. The department's investigation showed that students most affected by this system are African-American children and children with disabilities."

According to reports, these mostly black, mostly disadvantaged kids are ending up in detention centers for crimes as varied as dress code violations, truancy, profanity and disrespect. It's nothing short of sinister that minority children would be sent on a prison track for engaging in behavior that is pretty standard growing-up stuff. In the school I attended as a teenager, an all-girls, predominately white, convent school run by nuns, we engaged in "criminal" behavior similar to that which lands the kids in Mississippi and elsewhere in prison. Dress code violations such as wearing ankle socks instead of knee socks or t-shirts instead of the required button-up blouse were standard fare; talking back or out-of-turn and truancy were everyday occurrences; and even semi-serious infractions like smoking cigarettes or sneaking vodka into the classroom in a flask were not unheard of – though I plead the fifth on all the above. Yet, the nuns, bless them, managed to deal with all these "crimes" and misdemeanors without ever having to call the cops or send anyone to jail.

And that was a lucky thing for us because all the research comes to much the same conclusion (pdf): the worst thing you can do for a kid, especially for a troubled or already disadvantaged kid, is to get them started on a cycle of incarceration. It has a lifelong impact on their mental and physical well-being, their ability to complete an education and their future job prospects. Yet, the very people who are entrusted with the responsibility of preparing children for the best possible future are too frequently abdicating that responsibility in favor of teaching certain kids a harsh lesson.

Sadly for those kids, and for society at large, the lesson they most often learn is that the system is out to get them.