The School-To-Prison Pipeline

Many people believe that there is a direct correlation between the education system and the criminal justice system in the United States. This may seem surprising to some, but research indicates that both poor education, specifically literacy rates among young students, and poorly administered discipline can be directly linked to an increase in imprisonment toward certain students. This is the subject matter of two separate articles: The Relationship Between Incarceration and Low Literacy by Troy at Literacy Mid-South, and The School-to-Prison Pipeline by Marilyn Elias.

Although slightly different in content, both of these pieces generally share a similar overall message: there is a distinct problem in our schooling system in this country, and as a result it is quite often forcing kids to follow a bad path, inevitably landing them in jail sometime down the road. In this perspective, schools can be viewed as a natural gateway into the so-called “School-to-Prison pipeline”, which is

This is what Elias encapsulates in her article, and there are various reasons that she pinpoints as initial triggers of this problem. Primarily, a large part has to do with incorrect administration of disciplinary action within schools by teachers and staff. Troy also touches on this matter in his article, stating that teachers should feel a moral obligation to analyze the situation more effectively when dealing with students that are acting out rather than simply sending them off to the Principals or Deans office. Another reason that might be behind this issue, according to Elias, is the large increase in police and resource officers within schools nowadays. It is reasonable to assume that placing officers in schools simply makes it easier for troublemakers to have increased run-ins with the law at a very young age, therefore eliminating a “middle man” and allowing for students to fall into the