The School to Prison Pipeline Synthesis

The School to Prison Pipeline Synthesis

Since 2010, the issue of the school-to-prison pipeline has attracted significant reactions in the country. Proponents of this practice have continued to support it by claiming it is useful and that it has minimized the proliferation of security issues in schools. Contrastingly, in recent times, many people have come out criticizing this practice claiming it’s discriminatory and also that it causes educational and sociological harm to students. Due to the growing debate on the issue of the school-to-prison pipeline, many works of literature have been developed based on research about the subject. “How the School to Prison Pipeline is Created” by Carla Shedd; “When School Feels Like Prison” by Melinda D. Anderson; “The School to Prison Pipeline: Time to Shut It Down” by Ellen Flannery; and “How to Discipline Students without Turning School into Prison” by Jeff Deeney are articles describing the negative impacts of the process. The adverse effects of the school-to-prison pipeline include racial tension, interrupted students’ learning process, and increased incarceration rate.

The most significant impact of the school-to-prison pipeline is racial tension. All four articles highlight that this practice habitually targets minority groups, specifically blacks, and Latinos. In the article “When School Feels like Prison,” Melinda indicates that despite witnessing few cases of gun violence, schools with predominantly black populations are put under intense security watch than schools with white majority students’ population. Melinda indicates that most shootings that have happened in schools around the country have mostly occurred in schools with a predominantly white majority (Melinda 4). According to Mary (42) and Carla (3), students from minority groups (including minority race groups and students with disabilities) are more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than white and non-disabled students. Jeff also outlines that 50% of students referred or arrested by law enforcement officers are black or Latino (4). All of the authors assert that the minority groups are the target of these harsh policies due to historical inequalities and prejudices that still exist in the country. Black and Latinos are perceived as a threat by the whites whenever they are in schools, and they are stereotyped and associated with violence. Therefore, they are usually the target for thorough security screening and also victims of punitive disciplinary policies. By realizing the biasness of the practice, and they are the apparent target of these harsh policies, minority groups demonstrated resentfulness, and this has escalated to racial tension.

All these four articles assent that the school-to-prison pipeline has interrupted the student’s learning process. Mary highlights that this practice has immensely interfered with the learning process of young students. “For these students, it isn’t just an interruption of learning, although it is definitely that, too-they aren’t in school, they aren’t learning. From the article, Mary indicates how devastating it is when young student’s learning process is paralyzed for committing petty offenses like talking back at the teacher in class when they are suspended, expelled, or sent to juvenile prisons. The article “When Schools feels like Prison also depicts how learning is interrupted by the implementation of school-to-prison policies. The authors, Melinda and Carla, in their separate articles, outlines that a lot of time is wasted to carry out security screening on students, time that otherwise could have been used in classroom studies (3; 4). Having law enforcement officers in the school compounds creates a terrifying environment that impacts students’ focus and concentration as they tend to feel unsafe and uncomfortable. The article “How to Discipline Students without Turning Schools into a Prison” highlights how the practice of school-to-prison results in numerous cases of suspension and expulsions for minority groups support the claim that it interrupts students learning (Jeff 3). From the articles, it can be highlighted the policies of this practice involves automatic suspension, expulsions, or rushed referrals to juvenile criminal justice. Implementation of these policies, no doubt, can impact the learning of the student who falls on the wrong side of the rules.

The practice of the school-to-prison pipeline has resulted in increased incarceration for youths. The article “The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Time to Shut it Down” indicates that the policies of “zero tolerance” have led to millions of detained juvenile students from minority groups (Mary 43). The article outlines an example of a young male student that was put in a juvenile detention center for 21 days just for talking back in the classroom. With the implementation of these policies, more students are now becoming victims of violating the tightened school rules (Carla 2). Carla (2) also indicates that as some may argue that those policies help reduce indiscipline cases, their adverse impact is damaging to students. Therefore, the author is outlining that measures that are going to help not hurt students are needed. Melinda and Jeff, in their respective articles, also indicate how the practice of school-to-prison pipeline has increased the number of youths incarcerated. Since most states and cities are still investing in these strategies, the resulting effects are the criminalization of blacks and Latinos in public schools.

Based on the bits of evidence discussed above, it can be concluded that the school-to-prison pipeline adversely affects students’ lives. Some of the negatives effects of school-to-prison effects include racial tension, interrupted students’ learning process, and increased incarceration rate. All these four articles assent that school-to-prison pipeline has interrupted student’s learning process and also that the practice of school-to-prison pipeline has resulted in increased incarceration for youths, and subsequently, racial tension. The minority groups are often the target for thorough security screening and also victims of punitive disciplinary policies at schools. When racial minority groups have realized that they are the apparent target of these harsh policies, they can begin to demonstrate resentfulness, and this can relate to racial tension.