“School-to-Prison Pipeline” as Forgetting Dynamic, Interrelated Risk: What Currently Incarcerated Men Need Us to Remember

• In Event: When We Unforget Trauma, Developmental Accountability Becomes Possible

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
Building on prior research regarding risk factors associated with adult incarceration, this study aims to explore the lived risk trajectories of currently incarcerated men in three states. By examining the timing, accumulation and interrelatedness of risk factors, we aim to identify turning points, lost opportunities for prevention, and new opportunities for change.
Perspectives or theoretical frameworks
Over the past 30 years, “school-to-prison pipeline” (STPP) has emerged as a powerful explanatory frame for the emergence and persistence of mass incarceration in the United States (Losen & Wald, 2003). However, STPP forgets too much. It is narrow in scope, time-limited, and inconsistent with our best understanding of human development. Grounded in developmental cascades (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010) and life course (Sampson & Laub, 2017), this study situates STPP in broader lived experience driving the pathway to prison, calling us to remember the place of school and non-school fators.
Methods, techniques or modes of inquiry
Drawing on phenomenology, this qualitative study involves two in-depth individual interviews conducted about two weeks apart in prisons where participants reside. First semi-structured interviews invite participants to describe their life story. Using life graph with cards (LGCM), second interviews invite participants to build a timeline and narrative of their lived experience of risk and contacts with systems, such as special.
Data sources, evidence, objects or materials
Data comes from interviews carried out in three distinct regions of the United States, chosen for variation in racial disproportionality in the corrections system, which produce narrative data analyzed using narrative thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2014). Presented with 30 laminated cards, each printed with one risk factor from existing literature, participants “take all the cards that happened to you” arrange them in chronological order based on age at first occurrence and then answer questions about each experience. Cards are arranged vertically when more than one risk occurred at the same age. Life graph data are visualized to identify patterns across respondents (Shneiderman, 2002). Figure 1 provides a visual example.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Results indicate that currently incarcerated men are exposed to many risk factors across multiple developmental domains. Developmental cascades emerge from exposure, as risk factors in one domain drive increased probability of poor outcomes in other domains (Evans et al., 2013). These phenomena mitigate current understanding of individual responsibility, and when paired with data regarding systems of care, suggest that many “helping” activities may have critical roles in and responsibility for outcomes.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study
Although the STPP framework has been used for over two decades, only recently have empirical studies begun to transcend serial associations as the underlying mechanism. Through grounding in human development and life course this study begins to reveal how dynamic interactions among risk factors and developmental contexts magnify the probability of incarceration. Examining the temporal ordering of risk calls into question the assumed nature of risk along pathways to prison

Authors

• Jeffery Chaichana Peterson, University of Montana

• Krista L. Goldstine-Cole, University of Montana