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Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
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What causes students to enter the School-to-Prison Pipeline? In the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren said, “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunities of education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right that must be made available on equal terms.” There is a widespread issue that is currently affecting children across the nation. It’s too often that schools push racial minorities and children with disabilities from the classrooms to the criminal justice system at increased rates for minor offenses, suspensions, and expulsions. According to the article, “The School to …show more content…
Many people can argue the fact that everyone is given the same opportunity because everyone is provided with access to public education. Yes, everyone is given an opportunity to attend school but I want to focus on the opportunities that create imbalance within the school system. According to a NAACP article, “Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline”, public schools in low-income areas are being staffed with teachers and guidance counselors who are inexperienced in handling situations that the students face on a daily basis. Additionally, low-income school lack sufficient resources, affordable extracurricular activities, early intervention programs, or safe environments which are conducive for learning. These schools do not receive the same funding as middle-class schools, therefore, they are unable to provide the same quality teachers, educational material, or technology for students to use. When students are underperforming and failing rigorous tests on material they lack knowledge of, they are often labeled as having a learning disability versus identifying the individual students’ educational weaknesses and addressing those. The students are usually transferred to alternative schools and held to different standards, which are often lower and do not challenge a student to grow. Instead, these schools push children through …show more content…
Research has shown there is a undeniable correlation between incarcerated people and illiteracy. Currently as a nation, “50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eight grade level. Additionally, 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level” (“Literacy Project”). Being undereducated highly affects one’s ability to gain successful employment and to earn a decent living wage. I was shocked when my college professor told me that society uses the test scores of third grade students to determine approximately how many prisons the United States would need in the future. In a way, society is already planning to give up on America’s children more so minorities at such an early age. It makes me question why the government would pour funds into the criminal justice system versus putting the funds to better use in the education system to prevent needing the extra prison in America. Look at the problems a student faces when they are undereducated and unable to read at the level they should be reading. It causes them to fall behind in coursework, reflects badly on grades, and can prevent the student from advancing to the next grade. According to recent research, “85% of juvenile offenders have reading problems” (“Literacy Project”). Eventually, students drop out and
For my second article review I decided to do mine over the article Harry Wilson titled Turning off the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The main theme that this particular article deals with is how our school systems have become a direct pipeline for kids to end up in prison and the way to break this pipeline is through our schools changing certain policies they operate by. The main topic of this article that the author talks about frequently that contributes to the “pipeline” is the zero tolerance rule that school systems follow. The author speaks frequently about how the zero tolerance policy is a key factor to the school-to-prison pipeline being eliminated. Throughout the entire duration of the article the reader can expect to be confronted with
There is a strong inequality present in this problem as well, minorities who are often already at a disadvantage compared to their white classmates, are that much more dependent upon receiving an education as a way to break the chains of poverty, but it isn’t just learning, if they are not in school, they are not in an environment that is safe and constructive, therefore a suspension can be life altering (Nelson & Lind, 2015). Studies have shown it is the number-one predictor even more so than a student’s poverty level that the failure to receive an education greatly increases the likelihood of unemployment, and deviant behavior (Nelson & Lind, 2015).
The school-to-prison pipeline is the idea that schools funnel students into the prison system. This theory is narrow-minded and ignores how the government benefits from the surveillance of African Americans. With the imagery of a pipe, this complex issue is reduced to the single-minded idea that schools force people of color, most notably African Americans, and does not discuss the evolution of the larger society. The way society has evolved to discriminate against African Americans at the institutional level is a key factor in the increased incarceration rates. The school-to-prison pipeline is an outdated and prejudiced model that does not fully explain the situation many African Americans face.
America is often thought of as the land of equality and opportunity. We have fought for many things like all people being treated as equals and women’s rights and seen change, but one thing that has not seen a lot of change is the equality for the students in the American education system. Many people think that the American education system gives all students an equal chance to succeed, but minority students such as Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, etc. have a harder time persevering in school than other students. Since our education system is based on strict disciplinary methods, curriculums for students that speak English, and funding for resources, the question that arrives in many people’s minds are, if all students are given an equal
There are various reasons why many juveniles are ending up in the juvenile justice system unjustly. The pipeline commences with inadequate resources in public schools. Many children are locked into second rate educational environments in which they are placed in overcrowded classrooms, insufficient funding, lack of special education services and even textbooks. This failure to meet the educational needs of children leads to more dropout rates which could also increase the risk of later court involvement. Surprisingly enough, some school may even encourage children to drop out in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes which create incentives to push out low-performing students to increase overall test scores.
Education has long been regarded as a valuable asset for all of America's youth. Yet, for decades, the full benefits of education were denied to African Americans as a result of the prevailing social condition of Jim Crowism. Not until the verdict in Brown V the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, would this denial be acknowledged and slowly dismantled.
Brown v. Board of Education, which was the 1954 Supreme Court decision ordering America’s public schools to be desegregated, has become one of the most time-honored decisions in American constitutional law, and in American history as a whole. Brown has redefined the meaning of equality of opportunity, it established a principle that all children have a constitutional right to attend school without discrimination. With time, the principles of equality that were established, because of the Brown trial, extended beyond desegregation to disability, sexuality, bilingual education, gender, the children of undocumented immigrants, and related issues of civil equality.
The intent of this argumentative research paper, is to take a close look at school systems disciplinary policies and the effect they have on students. While most school systems in the nation have adopted the zero tolerance policies, there are major concerns that specific students could be targeted, and introduced into the criminal justice system based on these disciplinary policies. This research paper is intended to focus on the reform of zero tolerance policies, and minimizing the school to prison pipeline.
Brown v. Board of the Education in 1954 was a landmark decision in the education arena. The decision maintained that schools that separated students by the color of their skin could no longer be maintained. The court saw this as necessary, since in their mind schools for black students would always be inferior. This inferiority would not be caused by lack of resources, although that usually was a contributing factor to the poor quality of the school, physically and performance-wise. As the Supreme Court saw it, s...
Furthermore, our current education system places blacks and Hispanic students on a trajectory towards the cyclical pattern in our prison and incarceration systems. Our educations disciplinary system is ineffectively enforced, which leads to blacks, Hispanics, and other minority groups to be picked out at early ages. If these students are being suspended without school work, supervision, or an established routine, where are they going to be hanging out? In the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander presented the parallels that exist between the school to prison pipeline, where 37.2% of African American students are locked up before they finish high school. The statistics she presented may push some people to make the assumption that higher education
Although education can be an escape from poverty, the people of color rarely have access to good schools or education systems.
The amount th of money that has been spend on prisons is about 49 billion dollars the reason for this is because people are being sent to prison and some re offend and come back. The main purpose of going to jail is to never come back , but in some cases others don 't seem to learn from their mistakes. This is the reason why prison education would come in handy. In the article “Education and Vocational Training in Prisons Reduces Recidivism, Improves Job Outlook” its states that “Researchers found that inmates who participate in correctional education programs have 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not”This quote is pretty much saying that the percentage of inmates that has education is less likely to come back. This is good because the amount of money that we would be saving would probably help us with debt that we face a lot in american. Education is the most important form of rehabilitation for
In today’s society mainly anyone growing up in poverty stricken communities, single parent homes, domestic violence or infested and drug infested areas are at risk to being abducted by the school to prison pipeline. The school to prison pipeline is a system designed for at risk teens that do not do well in school. The effect is them being thrown in jail. Economically the black and the Latino community constantly after generation and generation are getting dealt the same hand because each child in the new generation is growing up in a broken home and are falling victim to the same problems that the generation before them have faced. By compiling annual reports on the total number of disciplinary
Khadaroo, Teicher. A. “School suspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The Christian Science Monitor. March 31, 2013. Web.
Even though the Brown v. Board of Education was 62 years ago, African Americans are still fighting to have an equal education opportunity. “But many schools are as segregated today as they were before the ruling, and black children throughout the United States are performing at the bottom of the American educational system” (Jackson 1). Nevertheless, it took decades of hard work and struggle by numerous African Americans for a better education system. Education is the key to success, it gives people the knowledge that they need to strive and become more intelligent thinkers, which leads to more opportunities for them in the job industry. Ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination of any kind, African Americans have every right to have this equal educational opportunity like everyone else. But yet, they were stopped in their tracks by disapproving Americans, who confined the succession of African Americans in the education system. Now that we are in the 21st century, there’s still negligence on black’s education. The black community do not have equal education opportunities because of the lack of funding, poverty experienced by the children in the neighborhoods and society’s views of the black community.