UNC School of Law Professor Catherine Y. Kim and colleagues examine a disturbing trend that shows large numbers of at–risk youth, particularly those of color, being “pushed” out of the classroom and into the justice system in a new book: the School–to–prison Pipeline: structuring legal reform.
“The book presents the intersection of a k–12 educational system and a juvenile justice system, which too often fail to serve our nation’s at–risk youth.”
– Introduction
The policies and practices that contribute to this trend can be seen as a pipeline with many entry points, from under-resourced K-12 public schools, to the over-use of zero-tolerance suspensions and expulsions and to the explosion of policing and arrests in public schools. The confluence of these practices threatens to prepare an entire generation of children for a future of incarceration.
In this comprehensive study of the relationship between American law and the school-to-prison pipeline, co-authors Catherine Y. Kim, Daniel J. Losen, and Damon T. Hewitt analyze the current state of the law for each entry point on the pipeline and propose legal theories and remedies to challenge them. Using specific state-based examples and case studies, the authors assert that law can be an effective weapon in the struggle to reduce the number of children caught in the pipeline, address the devastating consequences of the pipeline on families and communities, and ensure that our public schools and juvenile justice system further the goals for which they were created: to provide meaningful, safe opportunities for all the nation's children.
The book published in 2010 by New York University Press.
UNC School of Law Professor Catherine Y. Kim and colleagues examine a disturbing trend that shows large numbers of at–risk youth, particularly those of color, being “pushed” out of the classroom and into the justice system in a new book: the School–to–prison Pipeline: structuring legal reform.
In this comprehensive study of the relationship between American law and the school-to-prison pipeline, co-authors Catherine Y. Kim, Daniel J. Losen, and Damon T. Hewitt analyze the current state of the law for each entry point on the pipeline and propose legal theories and remedies to challenge them. Using specific state-based examples and case studies, the authors assert that law can be an effective weapon in the struggle to reduce the number of children caught in the pipeline, address the devastating consequences of the pipeline on families and communities, and ensure that our public schools and juvenile justice system further the goals for which they were created: to provide meaningful, safe opportunities for all the nation's children.