The School-to-Prison Pipeline as Institutionalized Racial Violence

• In Event: Roundtable: Schools, Education and Crime

Abstract

I argue that the school-to-prison pipeline is a form of institutionalized racial violence. The school-to-prison pipeline concept captures multiple punitive trends in current educational discipline policies and practices, including increased adoption of inflexible, hyper-punitive disciplinary policies; increased use of exclusionary punishment practices; increased police presence on school campuses; and, growing spatial similarities between prisons and schools. Empirical evidence consistently reveals that Black and Brown students experience the impact of these trends at disproportionate rates. In fact, punitive school practices systematically harm Black and Brown young people in ways that deny their humanness and worth, that impede their future potential, and that facilitate their entry into the criminal justice system.

Author

• Elyshia Aseltine, Towson University