Facility to School Transition: A Case Study of Juvenile Justice Personnel Perspectives on School Reentry

• In Event: School Discipline “Matters”: Exploring the Education and Policy Contexts

Abstract

One of the uniquely positive, yet challenging realities of the juvenile justice system is that students who enter the system, will, in most cases, exit and reenter their schools and communities (Feierman, Levick and Mody, 2010). The level of support and coordination prior to and during a student’s transition back into the community and particularly back into school can have a significant impact on a student’s educational opportunities and outcomes (Bullis & Yavanoff, 2002). While many studies have focused on entrance into the juvenile justice system and scrutinized ways to identify and address delinquent youth, little work has been done to evaluate student reentry into schools and the impact of the relationship between schools and the juvenile justice system on the process (see Balfanz et al., 2003). This study addresses this gap by investigating barriers to student reentry to school from the perspective of juvenile justice personnel. Through interviews with juvenile justice personnel, I explore (a) how and why schools criminalize students and (b) the barriers they create to school re-entry from juvenile detention centers.
I rely on critical constructivist theoretical framework (Giroux, 2003; Kincheloe, 2008) to underpin the overarching conceptual model of the school to prison pipeline. I conducted a case study of a county juvenile detention center in the Southern United States. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with thirty-two participants, representing various levels of responsibility within the detention center, over an eight-month period (May to December 2010). Themes were identified and coded using external codes consistent with the school to prison pipeline conceptual framework and critical constructivist theory (Graue & Walsh, 1998). Three main themes emerged out of the data analysis: school leadership concerns; regressive labeling and stigmatization; and access to information. This paper focuses primarily on theme since it is not addressed in the literature.
The access to information theme highlights complicated, cumbersome re-enrollment procedures and limited transitional support services as major barriers to student reentry. The finding brings to light that there may be a significant failure of two institutions, (i.e. schools and the juvenile justice system), to properly communicate with one another. The lack of communication may be at the heart of the growing school to prison pipeline and be an important factor why and how students stay in the pipeline. School reentry issues are one way of getting at this missing component because successful reentry by its nature means that a student does not return to the juvenile system. Implications for theory, research, and school and juvenile justice leadership are addressed.

Author

• Rebecca Cohen, The University of Texas - Austin