Unit 6: The American Legal System BY: Yaira Peaks

The School-To-Prison Pipeline Have you ever thought of school being like a prison? Well then you should know about the School-To-Prison Pipeline. The School-To-Prison Pipeline is a system of local, state and federal education. The public safety policies push students out of school. The students then get influenced by the wrong group of people and end up in the criminal justice system. The youth of color and youth with disabilities are more affected by the pipeline than other youth. Increased prison spending means decreased spending on education, which means if kids don’t get the quality education they need then they will start failing their classes and drop out. It seems that communities suffer when young people can not attend or complete college because of rising costs. It’s not entirely the young people who are making the communities suffer it’s the adults. They’re not trying to correctly educate the young people.

Consequences For Getting Involved In The School-To-Prison Pipeline! There are many consequences for getting involved in the School to prison pipeline, Here is three consequences. Policing school hallways, A lot of under resourced schools are pipeline gateways by placing a lot of reliance on the police. The resource officers that patrol the hallways often have little or no training with teens or the youth. Disciplinary alternative schools is another consequence. People who have been suspended have been suspended or expelled have no right to an education. The private systems may fail to provide meaningful education. As a result the students go back to their regular schools unprepared. Lastly there is the court involvement and juvenile detention. Students who commit minor offenses might end up in secured detention if they violate boilerplate probation conditions. Students push along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention facilities. The vast majority of students never graduate.

The Tba School To Prison Pipeline Tba also contributes to the school to prison pipeline. Like in prison; our school has bars on the windows but in the case it’s for our own safety. We have school police, having school police doesn’t make us feel more safe it worries us more. If a police officer was in your school wouldn’t you think something was wrong? Lastly we have cameras, which makes us feel like our school can’t trust us or is invading our personal space.

The Alternative Plan People have their own perspective of different levels of misbehaving. Level one of misbehaving for me is if two kids are play fighting or pretending to hit each other. The level one consequence for play fighting/hitting would be going to the disciplinary office, have someone call parents and maybe arrange teacher parent conferences. Level 2 of misbehaving would be fighting physically. The consequence would be phone calls to parents, doing community service like coming in early at school to clean trash, clean classrooms and help out. The student would have to do this for 3 weeks everyday. Level 3 of misbehaving would be physically and emotionally fighting and/or bullying anyone also threats towards anyone. The consequence for that would be detention for a month and cleaning up the school for 2 months.

Zero Tolerance Policies My opinion on the zero tolerance policies is it’s very harsh. It can either be good in a way for kids or bad. It could be bad because if your constantly suspending the kid they will do even more harsh and harmful things to people outside of school, This will most likely lead them to jail. But if the teacher or principal were to talk to this kid and find out what was wrong with them they probably be helping them and making them a better person. It’s good for a kid because if they did something wrong then yes of course they should be punished.

The Disciplinary Hearing Process In the disciplinary hearing process there should be the student, the parent/guardian, the teacher and the principal. They should be discussing why the parent is hear and what the student did. The student tells his or her side of the story the teacher tells their side of the story and the principal and parent/guardian should give their opinion if the meeting was necessary or not and if so what the consequences should be.

Juvenile Justice System The juvenile system has five procedures you have to go through. The arrest and intake, when your arrested the police has to declare what to do with you. They may bring you home or give you a case to a social service agency. Next there’s the initial hearing the adjudicatory hearing and the dispositional hearing. None of the hearings are public and decisions are made by the judge. Lastly there’s the aftercare, the purpose of this is to help young people after they have been released from a institution. The purpose in these procedures is not to actually put the juveniles in jail but to help them by making them better people.

Strategies and Programs Strategies and programs I believe would prevent push outs are computer classes, girl groups, boy basketball, making organizations and boxing. People don’t notice but technology is a very interesting subject to young adults. There’s a lot to do with technology which gets them interested in it and also keeps them busy. The kids can make movies, clips, and documentaries and present it to each other, it makes things more fun for them. Another program that would prevent push outs is a girls/boys group. Girls love talking so why not talk with each other. Boys can also have their discussions about things that are going on in their lives. Talking things out are good some times you feel better. Boys basketball is another program that would prevent push outs. The boys can be getting exercise and probably get really good at it and someone can offer them a scholarship. Making organizations are helpful, the kids can talk about what organizations they need in their communities and create them. They can have people in their communities who are interested to contribute to their organization. These kids would feel better about themselves that their actually doing something. Lastly boxing would prevent push outs. Instead of kids always getting into fights with each other, they can join boxing and take all their stress out at the gym. It would be really helpful and they can possibly become a great boxer.

When you are feeling pushed out they should really talk to an adult about it. It’s possible that just talking to someone can make a difference. When a student feels like their being pushed out you should talk to the principal about what the teacher is doing wrong, and how the teacher isn’t putting in effort in trying to help the student. The student can tell their parents to have a meeting with the principal. Then the parent, principal and teacher or teachers can have a meeting about how the student feels that he or she isn’t getting the attention and knowledge they need because the teacher isn’t doing their job in teaching.