Commentary: Why you should care about the school-to-prison pipeline

There is no law outlining the school-to-prison pipeline.

You will not find it written down, nor will you find any legal precedents. However, the school-to-prison pipeline is a very real, systemic “policy” that is hurting the youth of our country.

The United States has the largest prison population in the developed world yet only 4.4% of the world’s population. For many, especially Latinos and African-Americans, the road to prison begins as a student as they get caught in the school-to-prison pipeline.

This can be attributed to an overall increase in incarceration rates and a decrease in school funding, coupled with policies that emphasize punishment, which set the stage for the development and proliferation of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Most analysts credit the gross expansion of zero-tolerance policies as cause of many students being pushed out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The zero-tolerance policy was originally enacted as part of the 1994 Gun Free Schools Act.

Since then, however, schools have expanded the zero-tolerance policy to include lesser offenses, such as alcohol or tobacco use and swearing. The implication of this policy expansion is that certain infractions mandate suspension and expulsion as punishments, often without consideration of the situation. As such, the excluded student loses educational opportunities and has an increased chance of dropping out of school.

Here in Newport Beach, where our high schools boast graduation rates in the mid-90s, the school-to-prison pipeline may not seem like much of a concern. However, I think it should be a concern of all citizens everywhere, because the alternative is large parts of generation after generation excluded from education and thrown into the criminal justice system where recidivism is high.

If society as a whole continues to ignore this problem, we are complacent in failing the youth of this country.

Newport Beach resident BRYNDIS KLEIN, a 2005 graduate of Newport Harbor High School, is enrolled in the master’s of social work progam at USC.