Zero Tolerance Policies and School to Prison Pipeline: Effects on Students Educational Path, Essays (university) of Social Work

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Running head: SOCIAL POLICY JOURNAL 1 Social Policy Journal Zero Tolerance Policies and School to Prison Pipeline: Effects on Students Educational Path

Social Policy Issue The school to prison pipeline is a trend wherein students are channeled into the criminal justice system. Instead of providing access to educational services and counseling to children with disabilities, poverty, abuse, and neglect, these kids end up being isolated, punished and pushed out of the school system. Zero Tolerance Policies and Lack of Resources The two major factors that fueled the pipeline are: the use Zero tolerance approach in schools, and the failure to meet educational student’s needs. The first factor originated during the 1990s when Congress passed a set of laws that was identified as a solution to school violence and have been part of the concept “Zero tolerance discipline”. The intention behind this approach was to keep minor violations in check in order to prevent more serious crimes. While there is not a clear definition of the “Zero tolerance”, it usually refers to those policies related to the criminalization of minor infractions of school rules. The zero- tolerance policies have played an important role in feeding the school to prison pipeline with terrible consequences for students’ educational paths, especially for students of color and those with special needs. As a result, the rates of expulsion or suspension for students’ misconduct have dramatically increased under these policies. Another consequence has been to have an increased police and security presence at school (as School Resource Officers), which in turn has led to criminalizing students for their behavior. The second factor that fed the school to prison pipeline was the shortage of trained teachers, the lack of enough funding designed for counselors and teachers aid, as a result, it was difficult to meet the students’ needs.

individual needs and their particular school's unique challenges." (U.S. Department of Education, 2019 ). The second effort is related to reducing and eliminating expulsion and suspension. Research has shown that the application of these policies leads to an increase in students’ suspension which in turn make students more likely to drop school and enter the juvenile justice system. Furthermore, these disciplinary policies have contributed to fuel social disparities in that they tend to be applied more to Afro American students and students with disabilities. (Heitzeg, 2009). In the past five years, we can see a shift towards bills that restrict the use of exclusionary discipline that demonstrates the intention to push away the zero-tolerance approach (Rafa, 2019). Implication of the Policy Issue on the Population Over the past decades several efforts have been made to find alternatives and solutions to preserve safety in school, nevertheless mass shooting incidents and massacre involving multiple victims every year. The U.S. Department of Justice will dispense grant funding through STOP School Violence Act, which provides support for school security, student and faculty training, and to aid law enforcement officers and first responders during school violence incidents. Along with these the Office of Justice Program’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) will provide prevention and mental health training, especially oriented to areas in need. There are two implications of these grants on the population: many places will not have access to these awards and the school district’s finances are not covering for even the basic supplies because the federal funding is not making up for it. Furthermore, while the federal government is focusing on funding for mental health services and increasing surveillance technology or other equipment, at the same time the schools still adopting the Zero Tolerance solutions toward

students. Research have shown that even if the explicit Zero tolerance policies and laws are rare, mandatory expulsion practices are still common (Curran, 2017). Finally, the funding and grants have solved part of the problem, because nowadays students have access to several services at school, thanks to trauma recovery and school climate transformation programs; moreover, the schools take into consideration mental health needs, with the presence of school counselor and social works professionals. This approach helps to meet the students’ needs and to face students’ issues at school, avoiding the path toward the juvenile justice system. At the same time, the Zero tolerance approach is still there, and we haven’t got rid of this. For most students, the pipeline begins with harsh disciplinary punishment combined with arrest, which finally results in a referral to the juvenile justice system. We need to get to the core of the pipeline; until the researches and data show that the Zero tolerance discipline is in use, we can’t eradicate the pipeline.