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Home :
Criminal Justice
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Juvenile Justice
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Kids at
Risk
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Name:
Devquan Jones
Location:
Atlanta, GA
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On Tuesday, March 11, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit against the Atlanta Independent School System and Community Education Partners for violating students’ constitutional right to an adequate public education. CEP is a for-profit corporation paid nearly $7 million a year by the city to run its alternative school, which is among the most dangerous and lowest performing schools in Georgia. More about this case >>
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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
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 >>
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
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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 >>
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