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School-to-Prison Pipeline
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The school-to-prison pipeline is the disturbing national trend of criminalizing rather than educating our nation’s children. Every year thousands of young people in Massachusetts become entangled in this dead-end process due to zero tolerance policies and practices. And many never get out. It is tragic that a child might be suspended or expelled for a youthful mistake. But that’s often how it begins—a minor school infraction starts a downward spiral that ends in court, or prison, and can last well into adulthood. This is an ever-increasing tendency, especially for the most-at risk students.

The primary fault in our system is the inadequate number of resources in public schools. Our schools are riddled with overcrowded classrooms, lack of qualification and insufficient funding. Due to these failures, many students become disengaged, eventually dropping out from education entirely. Because of this trend, schools have established a zero-tolerance mentality, meaning they impose strict and severe punishments without contemplation of circumstance. These unnecessarily harsh reprimands funnel more kids into the pipeline and the juvenile system.

Further, due to the lack of resources, in order to preserve control and obedience, many of these schools place increased importance on police patrol rather than administration supervision. With direct police involvement, the number of school-based arrests has risen dramatically making the school to prison pipeline a reality for at-risk youth at an alarming rate.

YAF works tirelessly through various projects and partnerships to stop children from entering this path, decrease the risk of chronic court involvement, and increase the chance that young people grow into responsible and productive adults through uninhibited education.

More information on the School to Prison Pipeline

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