School to prison pipeline

Miss Shelby said:

I think there needs to be a discussion about this. In my opinion, this initiative absolutely led to the school massacre in Florida. Thoughts?

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Pardon my ignorance, but can you elaborate?

Miss Shelby said:

Well in a nutshell brinny, it was a program initiated by the Obama administration based on the belief that kids of color were ending up in prison because of things that were on their records during high school, their youth. So it was put in place in certain areas, Minneapolis I believe one of them, that it was discriminatory to allow felonious records, or any for that matter, to permanently be placed on the records of youths of color, lest their futures be determined by that. I encourage you to investigate for yourself, however, as my summation is rudimentary and may not be totally accurate. This is what I infer of it from what I’ve read.

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Thank you Miss Shelby, i will.

Hi shelby,

I know I don't belong here, so I'll say my piece and get out. Your thread came up in the 'new threads' banner and I wanted to see what it was about.

In researching the 'school to prison pipeline', I didn't really find it to be about what you report. The pipeline is apparently a phenomenon that tries to tie overly harsh school disciplinary action to driving school children out of the classroom and thus, not completing their education, into a life that often leads them to prison. I didn't see any indication that it was some policy or regulation that President Obama had any hand in.

Now, people recognizing this phenomenon have tried to address the issue of finding better ways to discipline unruly students without having to suspend, expel or arrest them and thereby removing their chances of getting an education. Sen. Richard Durbin D-Ill. had this to say about the phenomenon:
“For many young people, our schools are increasingly a gateway to the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is a consequence of a culture of zero tolerance that is widespread in our schools and is depriving many children of their fundamental right to an education.”

We, in pressing the new 'zero tolerance' initiative against many events of children acting out, that used to be handled by a trip to the principal's office and a couple of swats on the backside, have now become incidents in which students are just immediately suspended or expelled because, well, we have now zero tolerance for children acting out. Really? They're children!!! Somehow, we have now become a culture that expects children to act like adults or go home.

Because we have taken away corporal punishment, and because our school systems have to tighten the belt on expenses, and so have pretty much gotten rid of detention, the only resource that a school administrator now has to attempt to correct bad behavior is to send a child home for a few days. That really just takes a bad situation and makes it worse for the child. The 'school to prison pipeline' phenomenon is telling us that this 'new and improved' way of dealing with discipline in our schools is setting up more students on the pathway to prison.

We just seem to have lost sight of the 'fact' that children's brains and responses aren't fully developed yet and we shouldn't expect them to act like adults in all situations that they may find themselves in. That unruly, and sometime possibly dangerous, activities shouldn't take away a child's ability to get an education because then you're taking a child with under developed cognitive abilities and further condemning them to an entire life of poverty. Whereas before, a lot of such behavior would be corrected by an in school counseling of some kind between administrators and parents and student, but the child would still go to school the next day. When I was in school, you really had to do something pretty bad to be expelled or suspended and a child was like never arrested in school. Oddly enough, in those days we had much fewer of these school massacres. I honestly can't remember a single incidence across the entire country where a public school student, or anyone else for that matter, took a gun to school to kill people in the 60's. Today it happens several times a year!

So, all of this just to say that sometimes in our attempts to make 'new and improved' we don't really understand all of the consequences that such new and improved methods may bring about.

So, I think that the truth here may be, and I readily admit that I don't have a clue as to any of these school massacre perpetrators school history, that the phenomenon of the 'school to prison pipeline' may have been a partial cause of many of them. But the 'school to prison pipeline' is not some policy of any government official, it is just a phenomenon that has been noted in how we now deal with student discipline.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

I don’t think it can be argued that the United States does not incarcerate enough people. We have abnormally high rates of violent crime and incarceration in the developed world, and there are still people who seem to think that imprisoning even more people will solve the problem.

miamited said:

Hi shelby,

I know I don't belong here, so I'll say my piece and get out. Your thread came up in the 'new threads' banner and I wanted to see what it was about.

In researching the 'school to prison pipeline', I didn't really find it to be about what you report. The pipeline is apparently a phenomenon that tries to tie overly harsh school disciplinary action to driving school children out of the classroom and thus, not completing their education, into a life that often leads them to prison. I didn't see any indication that it was some policy or regulation that President Obama had any hand in.

Now, people recognizing this phenomenon have tried to address the issue of finding better ways to discipline unruly students without having to suspend, expel or arrest them and thereby removing their chances of getting an education. Sen. Richard Durbin D-Ill. had this to say about the phenomenon:
“For many young people, our schools are increasingly a gateway to the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is a consequence of a culture of zero tolerance that is widespread in our schools and is depriving many children of their fundamental right to an education.”

We, in pressing the new 'zero tolerance' initiative against many events of children acting out, that used to be handled by a trip to the principal's office and a couple of swats on the backside, have now become incidents in which students are just immediately suspended or expelled because, well, we have now zero tolerance for children acting out. Really? They're children!!! Somehow, we have now become a culture that expects children to act like adults or go home.

Because we have taken away corporal punishment, and because our school systems have to tighten the belt on expenses, and so have pretty much gotten rid of detention, the only resource that a school administrator now has to attempt to correct bad behavior is to send a child home for a few days. That really just takes a bad situation and makes it worse for the child. The 'school to prison pipeline' phenomenon is telling us that this 'new and improved' way of dealing with discipline in our schools is setting up more students on the pathway to prison.

We just seem to have lost sight of the 'fact' that children's brains and responses aren't fully developed yet and we shouldn't expect them to act like adults in all situations that they may find themselves in. That unruly, and sometime possibly dangerous, activities shouldn't take away a child's ability to get an education because then you're taking a child with under developed cognitive abilities and further condemning them to an entire life of poverty. Whereas before, a lot of such behavior would be corrected by an in school counseling of some kind between administrators and parents and student, but the child would still go to school the next day. When I was in school, you really had to do something pretty bad to be expelled or suspended and a child was like never arrested in school. Oddly enough, in those days we had much fewer of these school massacres. I honestly can't remember a single incidence across the entire country where a public school student, or anyone else for that matter, took a gun to school to kill people in the 60's. Today it happens several times a year!

So, all of this just to say that sometimes in our attempts to make 'new and improved' we don't really understand all of the consequences that such new and improved methods may bring about.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

Click to expand...

You are exactly right. This initiative has been portrayed as an "Obama initiative" in several press accounts, when it was not created by the Obama administration.
The "school to prison pipeline" is a phrase established by psychologists and sociologists and suggests that harsher treatment of certain kids in school can be a factor in the far higher likelihood that those kids will end up in the penal system at some point. It is a provable fact that minorities and kids with disabilities are 3.5 times more likely to receive a suspension, or even an arrest for a disciplinary violation than non-minorities and non-disabled. 1 in 4 minorities with a disability have been suspended while only 1 in 11 non-minorities have. The initiative that I think the OP is referring to is one that takes a look at what these kids are doing wrong and considering whether the violations can be more successfully dealt with by a less harsh, more rehabilitative, discipline.
Unfortuantely, it is being portrayed that this initiative is covering up crimes and violations in order to keep these kids out of the penal system. And that is just not the case.

Miss Shelby said:

Well in a nutshell brinny, it was a program initiated by the Obama administration based on the belief that kids of color were ending up in prison because of things that were on their records during high school, their youth. So it was put in place in certain areas, Minneapolis I believe one of them, that it was discriminatory to allow felonious records, or any for that matter, to permanently be placed on the records of youths of color, lest their futures be determined by that. I encourage you to investigate for yourself, however, as my summation is rudimentary and may not be totally accurate. This is what I infer of it from what I’ve read.

Click to expand...

So the way it worked out was that a police presence at the school was established, whose job it was to act as sort of hall moniters without actually being in the hall... And no matter what the students did, arrests were avoided so their record would not become a part of any student's rap sheet. The job was a plum, with no real work except for, perhaps, a little attending of "conflict resolution" sessions, perhaps for fighting... It is hard to tell, given that no one seems to follow up much on how the program was working. The local elected sheriff was a liberal champion of the program, and appointed many of his pals to the job where there was virtually nothing to do but hang out at their little hut at the edge of the campus...

It was these deputies that did NOT respond to the shooter, and hid outside the building while the shooter was walking around murdering children inside the building... They apparently were following a protocol of DE-escalation of a conflict situation... 'These are children in a school who do not need an arrest record prejudicing their future', seems to be the idea of their failure to engage the 18 year old killer under the program. The School Board was on board, as was the community... No one would step up and challenge - No parent - The students themselves knew this student well enough to expect him to do what he did- No efficacious intervention was instituted - All in the name of this program of not unfairly stygmatizing dangerous children with bad records of couduct, even of criminal conduct, in the schools...

And this in the name eliminating racial prejudice, which spilled over into them not doing what needed to be done as the signals from this young white man became overwhelming clear, and when he started his killing, the officers hid outside and let the children be slaughtered by him with bullets...

It was a massive Obama Administration fail, and perhaps for that reason is not getting the coverage it deserves... The good news, at least for now, is that the present administration is addressing at least some of the issues that led to it... The fail came as a consequence of an ideologically conceived program of "scientific" social engineering imposed on a passive populace that closed its eyes to crimes of students, thereby resulting in the killing of students by a criminal adult-education student...

Arsenios

RKO said:

You are exactly right. This initiative has been portrayed as an "Obama initiative" in several press accounts, when it was not created by the Obama administration.
The "school to prison pipeline" is a phrase established by psychologists and sociologists and suggests that harsher treatment of certain kids in school can be a factor in the far higher likelihood that those kids will end up in the penal system at some point. It is a provable fact that minorities and kids with disabilities are 3.5 times more likely to receive a suspension, or even an arrest for a disciplinary violation than non-minorities and non-disabled. 1 in 4 minorities with a disability have been suspended while only 1 in 11 non-minorities have. The initiative that I think the OP is referring to is one that takes a look at what these kids are doing wrong and considering whether the violations can be more successfully dealt with by a less harsh, more rehabilitative, discipline.

Click to expand...

Unfortuantely, it is being portrayed that this initiative is covering up crimes and violations in order to keep these kids out of the penal system. And that is just not the case.

Click to expand...

It was the case here, to the degree that the deputies on duty at the school hid outside the school building and failed to engage the shooter while the children inside the building were being murdered...

What protocol were they following? Because in such situations, training takes over, and deputies will engage a shooter of children in a school without hesitation unless training protocols forbid it... The local police, for instance, did not hesitate to enter the building... But the Sheriff Deputies "assumed defensive positions", which keeps them safe while the children are being shot one by one...

Arsenios

okay, well now that I see that non-catholics are responding, I guess I shall also.

I find it just dumbfoundingly amazing, that a thinking person believes that this:

Arsenios said:

It was the case here, to the degree that the deputies on duty at the school hid outside the school building and failed to engage the shooter while the children inside the building were being murdered...

What protocol were they following? Because in such situations, training takes over, and deputies will engage a shooter of children in a school without hesitation unless training protocols forbid it... The local police, for instance, did not hesitate to enter the building... But the Sheriff Deputies "assumed defensive positions", which keeps them safe while the children are being shot one by one...

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Addresses this:

RKO said:

Unfortuantely, it is being portrayed that this initiative is covering up crimes and violations in order to keep these kids out of the penal system. And that is just not the case.

Click to expand...

God bless,
In Christ, ted

The sheriff made it very clear that the deputy was following his own protocol, certainly not one established by the sheriff's office or law enforcement in general. He hid outside while listening to kids getting shot inside.
I tried to find some possible basis that this was Obama's fault. The closest I could get was that the Sheriff was elected as a democrat. Is that how you assess that it's a "massive Obama fail?"

miamited said:

The 'school to prison pipeline' phenomenon is telling us that this 'new and improved' way of dealing with discipline in our schools is setting up more students on the pathway to prison.

So,... the 'school to prison pipeline' is not some policy of any government official, it is just a phenomenon that has been noted in how we now deal with student discipline.

Click to expand...

Thank-you Ted for your thoughtful post.

There is a "school to prison pipeline" that exists, and the event in Florida illustrates one way of how NOT to deal with it. At-Risk schools for troubled and/or criminal students, where discipline is different from that in schools where it is not needed, might be appropriate... It is certainly the case in prisons, where discipline is total, so that a gradation of progressive enforcement might be appropriate. Sero tolerance is a perfect example of how "perfect" is the enemy of "good"... Kids need discipline, and not necessarily punishment, but consequences... And when their behavior crosses the line into criminal, they need an alternative and more structured learning environment...

As a society, we need to acknowledge that there is good and that there is evil in the world, and both start out early in the lives of people, and correction of evil is not always possible, nor is the inculcation of good... And the two should engender differing consequences of behavior, and this should be aggressively explained to our kids in school...

Arsenios

I'll just suggest this and drop out of this conversation: the program you are referncing is essentially...no, it's literally what the court calls a Diversion program.
diversion programs exist in virtually every court in America and are designed to give kids a chance to amend their behavior, get needed counseling, and to have a fresh start without being punished for the rest of their life. The exceptions are for crimes of violence, or crimes involving a weapon.
I suggest to you, that if you live in the USA, kids are being diverted from the penal system everyday.

RKO said:

The sheriff made it very clear that the deputy was following his own protocol, certainly not one established by the sheriff's office or law enforcement in general. He hid outside while listening to kids getting shot inside.
I tried to find some possible basis that this was Obama's fault. The closest I could get was that the Sheriff was elected as a democrat. Is that how you assess that it's a "massive Obama fail?"

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The school board wanted the funds that the program offered, and decided to ignore criminal behavior as a result, because of the absence of any criminal records on criminal students criminal behavior in that school... This was an Obama Administration program, which attempted to divert criminal behavior by not arresting criminals engaging in it at schools... Because sociologists thought that statistical correllations showed that if you just don't have an arrest record for crimes you commit as a 14-17 year old, then you can live a normal life just like the other kids do who did not commit your crimes...

The Sheriff denied responsibility for the actions of his deputies...

Of course he did...

He is a piece of work, that one...

A political vampire blaming his subordinates...

Leadership accepts responsibility without hesitation...

He ducked and ran...

Arsenios

Miss Shelby said:

If it’s a matter of forum rules, I for one do not report people.

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Me neither...

Murdered children in school is a hot topic...

And should be...

Arsenios

miamited said:

okay, well now that I see that non-catholics are responding, I guess I shall also.

I find it just dumbfoundingly amazing, that a thinking person believes that this:


Addresses this:


God bless,
In Christ, ted

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You are right, it does not directly address the issue as presented...
It merely addresses a consequence of the issue...
So I agree with you...

The decision of the deputies to not engage the murderer inside the building simply indicates the degree to which they were willing to go to NOT act as Law Enforcement Officers... Which itself indicates the policy of not enforcing the Law on criminal student behavior...

And this failure to engage "is [the] covering up crimes and violations in order to keep these kids out of the penal system."

Thank-you for catching my error...

Arsenios

Hi arsenios,

You responded to my post:

Arsenios said:

There is a "school to prison pipeline" that exists,

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So far as I've read, no one is denying that the phenomenon known as the 'school to prison pipeline' exists. The question that I've brought up is what the 'school to prison pipeline' actually refers to and whether or not President Obama had any hand in it. Both of my posts have acknowledged that the 'school to prison pipeline' as the name of a recognized phenomenon does exist. My first post also denied any claim that President Obama, as the OP seems to want to hold responsible, has anything to do with the phenomenon or any possible government responses to it.

My endeavor here is to keep christians from slandering someone because of political party prejudice. I don't believe that such efforts are in keeping with the instructions of how we should behave within the world as believers in the one true and living God. It's fine for someone to bring up or discuss this 'school to prison pipeline', but when one then tries to make it out as some evil work of someone that it just doesn't appear to be, then I think such behavior should be corrected.

It sickens me, this phenomenon that has swept 'christian' websites that attempts to reinforce or make claims of political party judgments based on just because someone is a Democrat or Republican or Independent, that they are bad, wrong or evil. I prefer to deal with facts rather than just name calling or party affiliation as a way of proving an issue.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

RKO said:

The program you are referncing is essentially...no, it's literally what the court calls a Diversion program.

Click to expand...

Indeed it is...

diversion programs exist in virtually every court in America and are designed to give kids a chance to amend their behavior, get needed counseling, and to have a fresh start without being punished for the rest of their life. The exceptions are for crimes of violence, or crimes involving a weapon.
I suggest to you, that if you live in the USA, kids are being diverted from the penal system everyday.

Click to expand...

I guess we might say that the program in the Florida shooting was a "pre-Diversion-Program"... Whereby kids are not arrested at all, and never have to appear before a judge, and avoid that initial contact with the criminal system, even applied to juveniles and diverted from their record of it, because sociologists decided that the "pipeline" started with juvenile crimes that were later concealed by diversion programs...

Keeping guns from such criminal folks would seem to be a good idea, but how to do so and maintain their concealment from public scrutiny via Diversion is problematic...

Arsenios

Hi arsenios,

You responded to my post:

Arsenios said:

It merely addresses a consequence of the issue..

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I know that I can be rather dimwitted at times, so I'll request your indulgence in explaining to me how your claim that some law officers failed to move in to stop an ongoing attack in a school is a consequence of the 'school to prison pipeline' phenomenon. The shooter wasn't even a student at the time. Is it possibly your contention that the cognitive thinking of these officers was something along the lines of: Well, I don't want to create a disciplinary action against the person that's in there killing people, so I'll just hang out here until...

That's really the only connection that I can come up with so I'd appreciate your elaborating on your response to me.

I'm certainly willing to consider that the police officers were just scared, but really, you want us to believe that their waiting outside was a response to the 'school to prison pipeline' phenomenon? I would also recognize that some law enforcement training does encourage that officers don't put their lives at risk without someone to cover them, i.e. backup.

A lot of people want to think of law enforcement officers as Rambos. But the training they receive in dealing with deadly situations encourages them not to.

God bless,
In Christ, ted