How School-Related Strain Pushes Students Toward Delinquency and Cycles of Carcerality

• In Event: School Policy and Strain, Black Tenure-Track Sense of Responsibility, and Flourishing: Paper Session

Abstract

In the United States, due to extreme and disproportionate discipline practices within certain schools and the excessive criminalization of common offenses, justice involvement and incarceration have become default responses to behaviors categorized as delinquent. These heavy-handed practices mean that a significant number of youth under 18 will spend time away from schools in their communities while they serve sentences in residential detention facilities. Sadly, for those who return to school after stints in detention as well as those living out their justice involvement while still attending neighborhood schools, academic success and educational persistence can seem impossible as they attempt to thrive under the weight of stigma, stereotypes, and biases associated with their justice involvement.

Author

• Arlene Godwin, Auburn University