School to Prison Pipeline

Hartley Sierputoski and Carly Weinand

Zero Tolerance
◦ Disregards
circumstances and
context
◦ Predetermined
consequences
◦ Rehabilitation policies → Get tough policies
◦ Punishment often requires students to leave
the classroom (suspension/expulsion)
 Dropout/Graduation Rates
Exclusionary discipline - removes student from regular instruction

◦ a child extracted from her classroom is more likely to dropout of school.

◦ As a dropout, that child is then ill-prepared to obtain a job and become a fruitful
citizen.
◦ Beyond increasing the difficulty to obtain employment, dropping out also results
in social consequences, including:
▫ foregone tax revenues for the support of government services
▫ foregone national income
▫ increased demand for social services
▫ increased crime
▫ reduced political participation
▫ reduced intergenerational mobility
▫ poorer levels of health
Minority Disproportionality
◦ African American children are more likely than their white peers
to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of
conduct at school
◦ “43 percent of Black students in grades 6 through 12 experienced
suspensions compared with 22 percent Hispanic students and 16
percent White students.” (2010)
◦ For African American males in 2003, the risk of suspension was
nearly 18 percent; the rate for white males was 7 percent.
◦ Disproportionate impacts on students of
color, low SES students, ELLs and
students with special needs
 School Resource Officers
◦ Schools began to partner with law enforcement as an
anti-violence measure in the 1990s

◦ School Resource Officers (SROs) have the ability to make

arrests and may be more likely to respond to misbehavior in
this way

◦ Principals address
misbehavior in confidentiality,
while SROs lead to students
accumulating criminal records
Questions/Discussion
◦ How might we reform punitive policies to reduce
the effects of the School to Prison Pipeline?
◦ How can we schools safe while meeting all
students’ right to education?
◦ Are there any situations where students waive
their right to education? (ike involvement in
criminal activity)
References
Fowler, D. (2011). School Discipline Feeds the “Pipeline to Prison.” Phi Delta
Kappan, 93(2), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171109300204

Kim, C., Losen, D., & Hewitt, D. (2010). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Structuring
Legal Reform. NYU Press. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/stable/j.ctt9qfv12

McCarter, S. (2017). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Primer for Social Workers.

Social Work, 62(1), 53–61.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.bu.edu/10.1093/sw/sww078

Owens, E. G. (2017). Testing the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Journal of Policy

Analysis & Management, 36(1), 11–37.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.bu.edu/10.1002/pam.21954