The arrest enraged her parents and community members, who wondered how an institution of learning could call the police on a kindergartner. But overall, black students of all genders are disproportionately disciplined in school – though they actually do not misbehave more than their peers. Researchers have found that excessive suspensions and expulsions lead to various negative outcomes for students, including dropping out of school – and studies have shown that high school dropouts are more likely to be incarcerated than those who graduate high school.
Over the past 20 years, advocates, students, educators, and researchers have coined the term “school-to-prison pipeline” (STPP) to describe how harsh school disciplinary policies and law enforcement policies intersect to feed young people into the criminal punishment system. This is part of a national trend that criminalizes rather than educates students – and one that disproportionately targets black students – as “tough-on-crime” policy has resulted in millions of mostly black and brown people winding up behind bars. Nationally, since 1990, spending on prisons has increased three times as quickly as spending on education.
Over the past 15 years, black girls have been increasingly subjected to harsh disciplinary policies, including excessive suspensions, expulsions, and arrests that push them out of school. In September, the Black Women’s Justice Institute released a report, based on U.S. Department of Education data from 2013-14, that found black girls were more than six times more likely than white girls to receive an out-of-school suspension. Though black girls made up only 16% of female students in U.S. public schools, they made up 43% of girls who were referred to law enforcement and 38% of those arrested.
The 2015 report “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected” presented Department of Education data that showed while black boys were suspended three times more often than white boys for the 2011-12 school year, black girls were suspended six times more than white girls. In other words, black girls were more disproportionately targeted by harsh disciplinary policies than were black boys.
The realization that zero-tolerance policies in schools have led to criminalization and incarceration for students of color, and especially black students, has prompted calls for restorative justice and other, less punitive discipline practices. Some advocates say that the best way to prevent future incarceration is to invest on the front end in providing excellent educational opportunities for all.
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