School To Prison Pipeline Essay

From an early age many children are made to feel that they are undeserving of certain opportunities because they are simply “bad kids”. This state of mind is often planted in children who are growing up in poverty, don’t have good adult role models, or are minorities. In my research, I discovered the effects of the school to prison pipeline on students across the nation. The school to prison pipeline is a caused by disciplinary acts that push students out of schools and into the criminal justice system. These “zero tolerance policies” are the cause of the incrimination of students with disabilities and racial minorities. Instead of correcting minor behavior, students are often suspended or even expelled. It seems wrong to keep students from school rather than punishing them in a way that makes them want to do better. These punishments have a huge effect on minorities, the poor, and disabled students. Minorities make up more than half of the suspensions per year in United States schools. Instead of being

Baca mentions how “from the time [he] was seven, teachers had been punishing [him] for not knowing [his] lessons” showing an example of the school to prison pipeline in his essay. He claims to have quit school by the ninth grade and was “ashamed of not understanding and fearful of asking questions.” With the information provided from my research, I am able to more clearly understand Baca’s reasons for being in prison, and the negative identity he developed from school punishments. Baca, like other students in my research, didn’t learn, because he had been pegged as a bad kid from a young age. The school to prison pipeline is the cause of this negative identity and a main factor in Baca’s