[Magdalen] School-to-prison pipeline, the ugly reality behind Spring Valley school arrest

[Lynn Ronkainen]

link to article: 
http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/school-prison-pipeline-ugly-reality-behind-spring-valley-school-arrest

I read this, thought about sending the link and then decided to.... This 
article disturbs me because it is true.  All of the school districts in and 
around Houston (4th largest city in USA) have their own police departments. 
I'm sure this is the case in other large city/suburban areas in TX. These 
cops (and I've never seen female school police but perhaps women don't seek 
this job in law enforcement) carry guns and issue civil issue tickets - 
underage smoking, traffic infractions on school property. I do not have kids 
in school any more, but I am certain they might be called into a classroom, 
but probably not over something quite like the incident in SC, but I can't 
say for certain.  AFAIK we have not had any really bad incidents in the 
district I live in (4 high schools with another on the way) to date.

One of the largest suburban districts to the west of Houston was involved in 
something tangential but still relevant to the issue of the pipeline the 
article alludes to. The school was issuing tickets *to the students* in high 
school for truancy, even if they were minors. The tickets were expensive and 
in some cases, families were not able to afford to pay the ticket. This 
often led the student to be put in juvenile detention, even if they had 
come back to school! The district, when cornered after an article came out 
about this in the 2013-14 school year, justified the 'fine' because the 
child's absence deprived the school of the funds they would get if the 
student was in attendance. WHAT??? Silly me, I always thought truancy was a 
concern because it led to lack of education and possibly dropping out... 
apparently not.

The other issue involved in so many of these 'detention' scenarios is that 
often the facility these kids are sent to is run *for* the state, or county, 
by a privately contracted company. One can only come to the conclusion that 
the overuse of this *solution* (which we read about all the time for both 
juveniles and adults who are incarcerated) might be lining the pockets of 
everyone in this *other*  pipeline - in this case the pipeline from the 
absent student through pockets of each step - ticketing, court, 
school/district, all the way to the private company.

This is sad and sick. With all of the racial problems, particularly in the 
African American segment of our population, I have come to the conclusion 
that since the '60s we, as a nation have come up with some creative, corrupt 
and horrendous solutions to treating black people any way we want despite 
all the laws on the books. I guess we've proved that in order to change, 
despite laws, one really does need to change their hearts.  I mourn.

Lynn

link to article: 
http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/school-prison-pipeline-ugly-reality-behind-spring-valley-school-arrest