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Children who attend schools with high suspension rates are significantly more likely to be arrested and jailed as adults – especially Black and Hispanic boys – according to new research that shines a spotlight on the school-to-prison pipeline.
Data have long shown that Black and Hispanic students experience suspension and expulsion at much higher rates than white students, and that as adults, they're also disproportionately represented in the county's prison system. And while research shows a correlation between high levels of education and low levels of criminal activity, there exists little evidence on the role that individual schools can play in their students' future.
Researchers from Boston University, the University of Colorado Boulder and Harvard University sought to find whether a causal link exists between students who experience strict school discipline and being arrested or incarcerated as an adult, and whether attending a stricter school influences criminal activity in adulthood.
"Our findings show that early censure of school misbehavior causes increases in adult crime – that there is, in fact, a school-to-prison pipeline," the researchers wrote in an article published Tuesday in Education Next. "Any effort to maintain safe and orderly school climates must take into account the clear and negative consequences of exclusionary discipline practices for young students, and especially young students of color, which last well into adulthood."
#schooltoprisonpipeline #students #juveniledelinquency
Very alarming, but no longer surprising!
Here is a link to an infographic from the ACLU which can help summarize the process among African American students:
https://www.aclu.org/files/infographics/090116-sttp-graphic.jpg
Despite being immoral, the school-to-prison pipeline seems to be something the U.S. would naturally want to do. Considering America's capitalist economic system, and its still racially prejudiced social system, students from ethnic minorities are statistically more likely to recieve disproportionatly harsh punishments for disciplinary infractions, including suspension and expulsion. This makes them less likely to gradate, less likely to get gainful employment, and more likely to be in contact with the juvenile justice system. For-profit prisons are that much worse, because they allow cities and states to directly, and significantly benefit from incarcerating students.