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

[Roger Stokes]

On 30/10/2015 21:12, Lynn Ronkainen wrote:
> 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.

I believe there may be police linked to schools this side of the pond 
but their role is liaison.  The police will only get involved with law 
enforcewment on school premises if there is a serious offence to 
investigate.  School discipline is up to the school staff.

> 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! 

Respomsibility here to ensure the child receives edfucation appropriate 
to their age, aptitude and ability rests squarely with the parents.  In 
recent years the approach to children not being in school when they 
should be has been toughened but it's the parents who are responsible, 
have to pay the fixed penalties and, if it gets that far, appear in 
court and possibly be jailed.

> 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.

That seems unnecessarily complicated to me.  What a school receives 
depends on how manyt children are on roll on census day, the main one in 
October with others to make any necessary correction in January and 
April.  If the child is on roll but absent for some reason then the 
school gets the appropriate funding for that child.

> 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.

On principle I object to the involvement of private companies in law 
enforcement.  Their aim will be to maximise profits, which is helped by 
not addressing why X has offended so he will go and offend again - the 
revolving door syndrome.

Roger