The school to prison pipeline refers to the national trend of criminalizing misbehaviors that happen in schools across the nation. There are enormous implications for students, in particular male students of color, given the changes in how school culture and discipline is handled across the nation.

School to Prison Pipeline

• African American students are 3.5 times more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled.
• Black children account for 18% of students, but account for 46% of those suspended more than once.
• Students who enter the juvenile justice system face many barriers blocking their re-entry into traditional schools, and can be haunted by their criminal records later in life. The vast majority never graduate from high school, and may be denied student loans, public housing, or occupational licenses.
• While approximately 8.6% of public school children have been identified as having disabilities that impact their ability to learn, a recent survey of correctional facilities found that students with disabilities are represented in jail at a rate of nearly four times that.

Department of Juvenile Justice Statistics

• On a given day, 70,000 juvenile offenders are held in residential placements.
• On a given day in SC, between 788-919 juveniles are held in residential placements.
• There are 1.7 million juvenile cases each year. That is 4,600 per day.
• Charleston County accounts for approximately 10% of all juveniles detained in South Carolina.
• 1 out of every 5 youth brought before the court are detained.
• An estimated 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year
• African American youth make up 62% of juveniles tried as adults.
• The racial breakdown for youth in SC detention centers is 66% black, 30% white, and 4% identify as a different race or ethnicity.
• The gender breakdown for youth detained in SC is 78% male and 22% female.
• 14 states have no minimum age for trying youth as adults.
• 365 children have been legally executed in the United States.
• There are 73 children sentenced to life without parole in prisons today – 49% are black, 10% are Latin@.
• Of the 73 children sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses, all are people of color.

As one can see from the statistics above, the rates of children involved in the juvenile justice system are staggering. The problem is much larger than just the juvenile justice system. We miss the point if we look at single incidents to try and define the problem. The issue at hand is the intersection of multiple systems that are steeped in historic racism that perpetuate inequity in the world today. After the murder of Michael Brown in St. Louis, Brittany Packnett said, “Education did not save Mike Brown. Racism killed him.” That truth can be applied to many historical and current events. The events during Red Summer, the lack of accountability for the white instigators in those events and numerous others, the abuses against people of color and the lack of any types of reparations, Jim Crow and the history of lynchings, the foundation of our public school system and the current school to prison pipeline, housing disparities, income disparities, the fact that white high school graduates still out earn black college graduates today are all connected and are one much larger systemic injustice caused by white supremacy. In some ways there is this beat the odds mentality about students of color, but that is the wrong mindset. We must change the odds, but that will require those with power and privilege to educate themselves, give up power, be uncomfortable, and stop perpetuating the same forms of oppression that our country was founded on.

So that begets the question, what can you do when the problem is large and deeply rooted in our history. While it can sometimes seem that small things won’t make a difference, the AAST 300 class, in collaboration with the Charleston County Department of Juvenile Justice, is tackling an issue that will hopefully have a large impact on the youth detained in the juvenile justice facility in North Charleston. After a recent trip to the facility, our class noticed the limited number of books in the detention center’s library and decided that was something we could help change. In addition to increasing the number of reading materials, we also raise awareness about the current context of the juvenile justice system and the school to prison pipeline.

We are collecting paperback books for kids ages 10-18 between now and April 17th. If you have any books you would like to donate, please drop them off in the box located in the Center for Civic Engagement, Room 203, Lightsey Center.

Every spring break students find new and exciting ways to spend their week sabbatical from academic studies. The students that participated in the Center for Civic Engagement’s Alternative Break program are no exception. Alternative Break is a program that hosts student-led trips during academic breaks. It provides participants with hands-on experience in social justice issues while immersing them in new cultures. This year the College of Charleston had five trips to various parts of the country and the world.

Here one of the participants, Madeline Ryan, articulates her experiences in Nashville, TN on a trip titled Artistic Abilities: Abilities, disabilities, and the arts in Music City. Click on the headings for each day to visit her blog and read more.

This week, I’m participating in what’s called an alternative spring break. Through CofC, I along with 10 other ladies are heading to Nashville to work with and learn from art organizations that work with people with disabilities. Our trip is called Artistic Abilities.

Inside the basement, we got a tour from the director of the Parthenon! She was so excited and knowledgable about every aspect of the history of this site. For those of you who don’t know, Nashville had an International Exposition in 1897, celebrating its 100th year of statehood. Huge temporary buildings representing and celebrating cultures from around the world were built. Everything from pyramids to the Parthenon, fair games to exotic cafes, and a women’s building to a Chinese village were constructed. Though this fair was supposed to be a way to educate people who might never get the chance to travel, accuracy was not emphasized but rather our American stereotypes of different cultures. However, the main focus of the exposition was on the idea that Nashville is an “Athens of the South.”

At a long country farm table in the back, we meet Leisa Hammett. Leisa is the mother of an artist with autism, the one who runs her daughter’s art business, and a volunteer advocate for issues dealing with artists with disabilities . . . She started to talk about the start of her realization that her daughter had a passion for creating art and about starting her daughter’s business and the obstacles that she has overcome. She talked about how difficult it is to be running a business and raising her daughter by herself. She also talked about how difficult it is on the national level to find support for artists with disabilities: she is thinking about how she will combat the laws against getting disability support if her daughter’s business starts making too much money. What was really neat was that she did talk about disabilities, but she was talking like any other art business manager would be about his/her origins and issues.

My group . . . timidly peeked into the room at the end of the hall. This room had day patients from a center called Clover Bottom Developmental. These individuals are on the most severe end of the spectrum of intellectual disabilities. Most all were in chairs and a couple were hooked up to feeding tubes. The staff and nurses introduced us to all of them and their little quirks: someone didn’t like to be touched, someone laughed when you pretended to trip, someone loved to tap their feet to music, someone would want to just to be left alone.

During our dancing activities, one of the leaders filmed us. Our activity is part of a celebration of the 40th anniversary of this organization called VSA which is a state organization for arts and disabilities. This video will be exchanged with a partner in Austria, who is videoing a similar jazz activity. These videos will be put up online as a lead-up for the main celebration in July in DC. We are one of sixty countries represented in this celebration.

This morning we went back to the Rochelle center to mainly observe a music therapy session. As we crowded into the back of the small room, the young woman picked up her guitar singing “Hello, I’m glad to see you” to each of the individuals in the session. These individuals were on the moderate to severe spectrum. One individual would just smile up at the ceiling when she would sing his/her name, another would cover his/her face saying “Don’t scare me!” and another would acknowledge that she was singing his/her name but not want to interact with her. There were about 5 participants. During the session, she would do simple activities like “shake your tambourine when I sing the letter that your name starts with…and the letter is __” Or “let’s shake our tambourines really softly…now really loudly” While some had to continually have help to reposition the tambourine in their hands, one individual was so excited during a song that he stood up and shook his tambourine up high in the air.

Outside of the Kennedy Center, they have a small playground with cameras where they note the movement and interactions of children with and without autism, all who have fanny packs that record audio. They also have a volunteer called a confederate who has a bug in his/her ear to hear instructions given by Dr. Corbett and her research assistants. Even before this project, Dr. Corbett was interested in the interactions of individuals with autism and their typically developing peers. Before coming to Vanderbilt, she started a non-profit organization called SENSE theater. They produce plays with psychology students at the school, children with autism, and typically developing peers from schools in the area. Throughout her talk on her theater, Dr. Corbett continually stressed the importance of pairing individuals with autism with a fellow peer in a safe environment where no one will bully them.

So, today was wonderful and sad. Wonderful because we all woke up to snow!! But sad because all of our site visits were cancelled for the day because of the ice on the roads. Today, we were supposed to go back to the Rochelle Center (and I was really excited to serve in another room and have new experiences with new individuals) and go to a dress rehearsal for SENSE Theater.

When we got to Nashville, all of us for some reason, decided to adopt the most country accent you’ve ever heard. But no one else took up this challenge as much as Stephanie. Throughout the whole trip, she hardly abandoned her accent and she feared that it had become a part of her, or maybe that this was her true accent all along…