School-to-Prison Pipeline
|
|||||
|
|||||
The Racial Justice Program is committed to challenging the "school to prison pipeline," a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished and pushed out. "Zero-tolerance" policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while high-stakes testing programs encourage educators to push out low-performing students to improve their schools' overall test scores. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.
The ACLU believes that children should be educated, not incarcerated. We are working to challenge numerous policies and practices within public school systems and the juvenile justice system that contribute to the school to prison pipeline.
RESOURCES
> Fact Sheet: What is the School to Prison Pipeline?
ONLINE | PDF
> Talking Points on the School to Prison Pipeline
ONLINE | PDF
Hard Lessons: School Resource Officer Program and School Based Arrests
As the issue of school based arrests and discipline in general continues to be one of considerable importance, this thorough and incisive report touches on frequently ignored sub-issues and raises attention to existing issues and how to approach them.
>ACLU Press Release
 |
| > ACLU press release |
A LOOMING CRISIS
The Secure Detention of Youth After Arrest and Before Arraignment in Facilities Administered by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security
Massachusetts police and probation officers are unnecessarily incarcerating youth who are arrested when juvenile court is typically closed, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts and the Children's Law Center of Massachusetts. Many have been arrested for minor infractions and pose no obvious risk of flight or danger to the community.
NYCLU, ACLU WARN NYPD ABOUT ILLEGAL ARRESTS OF SCHOOLCHILDREN
The New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union have demanded that NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly immediately end the unlawful practice of arresting children in New York City public schools who have not committed crimes. In an Oct. 7 letter sent to Kelly, the NYCLU and ACLU highlighted NYPD data obtained in a Freedom of Information Law request which shows that between 2005 and 2007 approximately 300 New York City public school students were illegally arrested on school grounds for non-criminal violations. The children were handcuffed, forcibly removed from school and taken to police precincts.
Learn more about the NYCLU and ACLU's letter to Kelly >>
 |
| > ACLU press release > Boston Globe: Children Go to Jail, for Lack of Options (5/12/2008) |
LOCKING UP OUR CHILDREN: ACLU ISSUES REPORT ON UNJUST DETENTION OF YOUTH IN MASSACHUSETTS
A widespread practice in Massachusetts of locking up youth accused of minor offenses and who pose little or no danger to their communities is unfair, threatens public safety and wastes public money, according to a report released in May 2008 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts. The report documents the use of detention by state judges as a rehabilitative tool to frighten youth never convicted of wrongdoing. The report also addresses the woeful lack of placement availability in the state's child welfare and mental health systems that leave detention as the only viable option for youth who cannot safely be returned to their homes. Locking Up Our Children is a follow-up report to a 2003 report by the ACLU, which documented the disproportionate representation of youth of color in Massachusett's juvenile justice system.
DEFENDING OHIO JUVENILES' RIGHT TO COUNSEL
In 1967's In Re Gault, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that children under 18 have the right to counsel to assist with charges against them. More than forty years later, the ACLU is working to defend the legal rights of youth in Ohio. We have petitioned the Supreme Court to make it more difficult for juveniles to waive their right to an attorney, launched a public education campaign to inform young people of their legal rights, and are currently monitoring the State to make sure that incarcerated youth have access to the courts.
Learn more about our work to defend Ohio youth's right to counsel >>
 Read the New York Report >> |
OVER-POLICING IN NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS
The massive and aggressive police presence in public schools has transformed New York City classrooms into hostile and dysfunctional environments that are damaging to students and disempower educators, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a report released in March 2007. Read the press release >>
FIXING A RACIALLY HOSTILE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT IN SOUTH DAKOTA
In March of 2006, the ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Native American students in a mostly-white school district in Winner, South Dakota. The lawsuit claimed that the district discriminated against Lakota students in disciplining them, maintained a racially hostile school environment, and unconstitutionally took statements from students in disciplinary matters for later use in criminal prosecutions against the students. The groundbreaking settlement in this case was approved by a federal court in December of 2007, and the ACLU is now working with school officials, educational experts and the tribal community to meet the settlement's goals. Read more >>
WORKING TO DEFEND THE JENA SIX
The American Civil Liberties Union has raised serious concerns about the possibility of racially-motivated unequal treatment in the Jena Six cases, in which six black high school students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder for fighting with a white student in Jena, Louisiana.
More about our work in Jena >>