The Criminalization of School Rules and the School to Prison Pipeline

In the last 15 years, schools around the country began to criminalize normative child and adolescent behavior. Police and police-like security forces were increasingly used to maintain security in our schools. However, this enforcement practice, like law enforcement practices in the community, disproportionately affected students of color and students with special needs. Zero tolerance policies enabled the increased use of police response in schools. Countless numbers of students faced exclusionary practices that unnecessarily pushed them into a court system lacking resources to adequately respond to school environment issues. Students were exposed to criminal records and the accompanying collateral consequences for behavior that, in the past, had been addressed with a conference in the principal’s office or a call home.

Nancy Ginsburg, who oversees the adolescent practice focused on teens who are prosecuted in the adult court system for the Criminal Defense Practice of the Legal Aid Society in New York City, examines the history of the school to prison pipeline, the effects of criminalizing school behavior and the individual and systemic reforms that can be applied to remedy the harm created by this phenomenon.

Learning Objectives:

I.     Define the school to prison pipeline

II.    Explore an overview of the laws and practices supporting the school to prison pipeline

III.   Review the disproportionate effect of the pipeline on students of color and those with special needs

IV.   Recognize different reforms around the country

V.    Understand the reform guidance provided by the federal government

VI.   Identify mechanisms for individual and systemic reform