School to Prison Pipeline in New York City Protests By Chloe Maher

Recently, the New York City school system has come under fire for new budget proposals. Dozens of protesters went to city hall in a stance against a phenomena known as the school to prison pipeline. The school to prison pipeline is driven by zero tolerance policies which increase rates of suspensions, particularly among minorities. Suspensions of students during lower level education has been linked to a higher likelihood of incarceration later on. This is particularly an issue in New York City where currently police officers in public schools outnumber counselors, indicative of a huge issue with the school district. The 2020 fiscal year preliminary budget increases the NYPD's school safety division by more than twenty seven million, making the total budget at least 314 million and possibly even over four hundred million. To add even more fuel to the issue, the School Construction Authority wants to double their budget, for even more policing tools such as security cameras and metal detectors. Schools nowadays are increasing in similarity to jails with interaction with law enforcement on the daily. Sally Lee, a member of Teachers Unite, proposed that school systems invest in restorative justice initiatives. Restorative justice works in making amends and gives students more authority in school systems. It's been shown to have major results particularly within the San Francisco School District. In the seven years previous to incorporating it, they’d experienced a 152 percent rise in suspensions, mainly of African Americans. Despite them making up just one tenth of the school system, they made up half of these suspensions. School board member, Sandra Lee Howell, said in reference to San Francisco’s shift in school discipline policy, “Sixty percent of inmates in the San Francisco county jail have been students in the San Francisco public school system, and the majority of them are people of color. We just knew we had to somehow stop this schoolhouse-to-jailhouse pipeline.” They decreased their suspension rates using the restorative justice policies. However, Mayor de Blasio so far has shown no increase in budget for restorative justice policies. Personally, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they're increasing the budget for NYPD within school systems when they already outnumber the counselors within their schools, especially when these security measures have been shown to be ineffective. Considering, all the issues with police brutality as well, they're teaching students to be scared of law enforcement. In addition, in the New York City school district there were 900 summonses issued for noncriminal misbehavior for blank and hispanic students, catapulting them into the criminal justice system which is ridiculous and a testament to how unfair these extreme measures in school systems are. I genuinely think all school districts should make an effort to adapt to restorative justice policies considering how effective they've been shown to be in recent years.


Sources: https://www.theroot.com/counselors-not-cops-new-yorkers-protest-millions-prop-1833464478

http://oxfordre.com/criminology/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-346