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(This article is a few years old but offers a good insight into the history of the school to prison pipeline that is caused by strict disciplinary policies and heightened police presence in schools)
In 2010, 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez wrote “I love my friends Abby and Faith” and “Lex was here 2/1/10” on her desk in Spanish class with erasable marker. The school deemed these markings as vandalism, and as a result, Alexa was handcuffed, arrested, and detained at a New York City Police Department precinct in Queens. Several hours passed before she was released. While extreme, cases like Alexa’s are not rare; students all over the country face disciplinary procedures that deliver harsh predetermined punishments, rather than focusing on restorative practices.
Ultimately, this disproportionate way of looking at school discipline plays a major role in perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline. The “school to prison pipeline” refers to a national trend in which school policies and practices are directly and indirectly pushing students out of school and on a pathway to prison. Often zero-tolerance policies in schools funnel students into this pipeline. Zero-tolerance policies require school officials to give students a specific, consistent, and harsh punishment, usually suspension or expulsion, when certain rules are broken. The punishment applies regardless of the circumstances, the reasons for the behavior (such as self-defense), or the student’s history of disciplinary problems.
To prevent this streamline of students, many of them minorities, from entering the juvenile justice system, schools need to reevaluate their zero-tolerance policies by adding discretion and alternative forms of punishments.