Academic scholars have researched the various factors that are claimed to serve as a buttress to the school-to-prison pipeline system. Although these researchers may not work in fields directly relating to the school to prison pipeline such as education or law enforcement, their research is valuable due to the extensive amount data they are able to collect and the reliable methods they are able to carry-out. Furthermore, their research is thoroughly reviewed by other researchers in their field of research before it is approved to be published.

A lot of research examines reasons why students in the public educational system end up incarcerated. I want to explore two pieces of research that address these reasons, but in two unique ways.

The first piece of research looked at over-policing in schools, an issue widely talked about as a major factor in perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline. This piece of research sought to examine if police in schools were overly criminalizing student behaviors that could instead be settled by school administration or if police presence itself resulted in more reports of crimes that were already being committed. In other words, are the students being over-policed or are they committing crimes that truly need to be handled by police? Researcher Emily G. Owens tested these questions by evaluating the presence of law enforcement officers in schools through federal grants, data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics, and information about school safety from the National Center for Education Statistics School Survey on Crime and Safety (Owens, 2016). Her two major findings were:

“CIS [Cops in schools] do appear to arrest more people for crimes in schools after 1999, and, in particular, arrest more young people…implying that once an SRO is hired, young people have a higher chance of being arrested for misbehavior in school…” (Owens, 2016, p. 23).

And

“…adding officers to schools appears to increase both school safety and police involvement I violent, drug, and weapons violations with some additional awareness of drug crimes and serious violent offenses happening in the community at large” (Owens, 2016, p. 34).

In sum, her findings showed that police presence in schools definitely resulted in an increase in students, especially students younger than 15, being arrested for minor crimes. However, having a police presence in schools also resulted in a safer school and possibly outside community environment. I would challenge Owens to further her research by investigating the perception of school safety by school administration and students, particularly students. Even though more students are being arrested, do the students and administration feel it is working to increase school safety? Secondly, Owens mentions that SROs have the ability to mislabel bad behavior as behavior worthy of being arrested for. It would be valuable to see how often police in schools are mislabeling behavior that could be resolved through a guided mediation.

The idea of mislabeling students is explored through a case study of Juvenile Justice personnel perspectives on school reentry by researchers Heather Cole and Rebecca Cohen. Cole and Cohen interviewed workers at a state juvenile detention center in management and non-management positions. These interviews provided valuable insight on how, “school leadership concerns, regressive labeling and stigmatization, and access to information” (Cole & Cohen, 2013, p. 24) all played a role in perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline after students were arrested. Although this article is a specific case study making their results less generalizable, it is important because the majority of school-to-prison pipeline research focuses on how students end up in prison, but forget how schools also make it hard for formerly incarcerated students to get back in school.

The three categories listed above explain how formerly incarcerated or arrested youth are stigmatized and labeled as youth that are impossible to control and teach instead of being given an opportunity to start over. As a result, these students are hyper-scrutinized and are barely given second chances if they make small mistakes. Even worse, many students barely make it back to school due to the lack of understanding the arduous process of re-enrolling back into school even if they were only arrested for 24-hours.

Overall, both of these pieces of research develop controversial issues within the school-to-prison pipeline. While police are seen as necessary in promoting school safety by the perception of deterring criminal behavior, it is unclear if they are actually promoting a positive life trajectory for delinquent children or are just taking them out of the classroom in the name of school safety. Also, the reentry of youth back into schools is just as much a part of the school-to-prison pipeline as school policies that push kids out of school. These researchers have shown that the school-to-prison pipeline is real and active and hopefully their research can lead to effective federal and state policy change to dismantle it.

Links to Articles
Testing the School to Prison Pipeline, Emily G. Owens
Breaking Down Barriers: A Case Study of Juvenile Justice Personnel Perspectives on School Reentry, Heather Cole & Rebecca Cohen