In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link or the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated, because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools in creating the pipeline. This has become a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century.
U.S. School-to-Prison Link increasingly reflects practices of Mass Incarceration unique to the U.S.
The current sociopolitical climate, relating to mass incarceration in the United States, serves as a critical component in increasing the contact the incarceration system has with the United States education system, as patterns of criminalization translate into the school context. Specific practices implemented in United States schools over the past ten years to reduce violence in schools, including zero tolerance policies and an increase in School Resource Officers have created the environment for criminalization of youth in schools. This results from patterns of discipline in schools mirroring law enforcement models.
The disciplinary policies and practices that create an environment for the United States school-to-prison link to occur disproportionately affect disabled, Latino and Black students which is later reflected in the rates of incarceration. Between 1999 and 2007, the percentage of black students being suspended has increased by twelve percent, while the percentage of white students being suspended has declined since the implementation of zero tolerance policies. Of the total incarcerated population in the United States, 61% are Black or Latino.
In Maryland there is a similar trend, and a similar movement to work against these policies. Below are reports from the MAJR monitors on the School-to-Prison pipeline work in Maryland:
Final Report – December 2018
September 2018
February 2018
November 2017
