PAPER: The Horrors of the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Systemic Trap for Black and Brown Youth

The school-to-prison pipeline is a harrowing phenomenon that funnels children—disproportionately racial minorities—out of classrooms and into the criminal justice system. Far from being a series of isolated disciplinary incidents, the pipeline represents a systemic failure of educational and legal institutions to protect vulnerable and under-resourced youth, especially those from high-crime and low-income populations. Recent research highlights how zero-tolerance policies, the presence of law enforcement in schools, and historical legacies of racial oppression converge to criminalize childhood adolescence (Blitzman, 2024). This paper will examine the mechanisms of this trap, the historical context of educational policing, and the complex struggle to implement alternatives like restorative justice.

The Historical and Systemic Roots of the Pipeline

To understand the horrors of the school-to-prison pipeline, one must look beyond contemporary policy and examine the historical "long view" of abolition and education. Sotiropoulos (2024) argues that the criminalization of African American youth is not a modern aberration but a continuation of a historical trajectory dating back to slavery and the Jim Crow era. The educational system has often functioned as a site of control rather than liberation for Black students. Historically, policies have consistently prioritized policing over pedagogy, a trend that persisted through both liberal and conservative administrations in the post-Brown v. Board of Education era (Sotiropoulos, 2024). This historical context suggests that the pipeline is an inherent feature of a system rooted in white supremacy, rather than a broken system in need of minor repair.

This systemic oppression is not unique to the United States. Beck (2025) provides a comparative analysis of the school-to-prison pipeline in the United States and New Zealand, revealing striking similarities in how settler-colonial nations construct disciplinary systems. In both nations, the pipeline is facilitated by "unfolding systems of oppression" that target indigenous and minority populations—specifically African American and Māori youth (Beck, 2025). The parallel existence of these pipelines in different geopolitical contexts underscores that the issue is structural, relying on deep-seated societal inequities and institutional racism to function.

The Machinery of Exclusion: Zero Tolerance and Policing

The primary mechanisms driving the pipeline are zero-tolerance policies and the presence of School Resource Officers, also known as SROs. Zero-tolerance policies mandate strict, often exclusionary, punishment for rule infractions, regardless of context or intent. These policies exacerbate the pipeline by treating students of color like potential criminals and forcing them out of the learning environment through suspension and expulsion. These practices disproportionately affect Black and Brown youth (Bush & Dodson, 2024). This is not only extreme, but inhumane, given the circumstances in which these incidents occur and the already frightening inequities and disadvantages that exist for people of color in education.

The role of SROs—sworn law enforcement officers responsible for safety in schools—is central to this dynamic. While some SROs view themselves as mentors or lay counselors providing emotional support, their presence inevitably entangles students with the criminal justice system. In a study of SRO perceptions, Bush and Dodson (2024) found that while officers often articulated a desire to "serve," they largely adhered to zero-tolerance mandates that criminalize minor misbehavior. The conflict between their intentions and the actual impact of their role creates a dangerous ambiguity and a muddied public perception. Youth disciplinary issues that should be equitably handled by educators, social workers, and behavioral health professionals are instead over corrected, effectively greasing the wheels of the pipeline.

Critically, the "criminalization of childhood" extends beyond severe offenses to encompass relatively minor and subjective behaviors such as "willful defiance." Blitzman (2024) notes that the reliance on police to handle routine discipline issues has normalized the arrest of students for non-violent behaviors that aren’t overtly dangerous nor unmanageable at the school level. This shift transforms schools from safe havens of learning into extensions of the carceral state, where the leadership of the educator is supplanted by the badge of the officer (Blitzman, 2024).

The Disproportionate Impact on Black and Brown Youth

The defining horror of the school-to-prison pipeline is its racial targeting. The pipeline does not ensnare all students equally; it specifically captures Black and Brown youth. Beck (2025) emphasizes that children of color face harsher disciplinary measures for the same behaviors exhibited by their white counterparts. This disproportionate application of discipline is compounded by "negative police contact" and structural inequities outside the school, such as poverty and involvement in the state care system (Beck, 2025).

Sotiropoulos (2024) further illuminates this racial disparity by connecting it to the broader history of anti-Black violence. The modern policing of Black students is an echo of historical vigilante and state violence against Black communities. The pipeline effectively strips Black youth of their right to a childhood, viewing them through a lens of suspicion and threat rather than potential and promise. This "presumption of guilt" follows them from the classroom to the courtroom, creating a cycle of incarceration that is difficult to break (Sotiropoulos, 2024).

The Promise and Peril of Restorative Justice

In response to the devastation caused by punitive discipline, many educators and activists have turned to Restorative Justice as an alternative. Restorative Justice seeks to repair harm through dialogue and reconciliation rather than exclusion. However, the implementation of Restorative Justice is fraught with challenges. Cohen and Blanchard (2025) explore the rollout of Restorative Justice programs in Chicago schools, revealing a tension between "abolitionist" and "reformist" approaches.

While Restorative Justice holds the promise of dismantling the punitive logic of the pipeline, Cohen and Blanchard (2025) found that it is often co-opted by the very systems it seeks to challenge. Teachers tasked with implementing Restorative Justice often lack the resources or institutional support to do so effectively, leading to "implementation fatigue." Furthermore, without a radical shift in the underlying power dynamics of the school or substantial change to the legal system, Restorative Justice can become just another bureaucratic tool rather than a transformative practice. The authors argue that for Restorative Justice to be truly effective, it must be embraced as a "world-making project" that fundamentally reimagines conflict and care, rather than a superficial policy add-on (Cohen & Blanchard, 2025).

Conclusion

The studies presented here paint a grim picture of the School-to-Prison Pipeline as a resilient, adaptable, and deeply entrenched system of oppression for Black and Brown youth. It is built on a foundation of historical racism (Sotiropoulos, 2024), reinforced by zero-tolerance policies and police presence (Bush & Dodson, 2024), and sustained by global patterns of colonial inequity (Beck, 2025). While movements to dismantle the pipeline are growing, evidenced by the push for restorative justice (Cohen & Blanchard, 2025) and the advocacy highlighted in Willful Defiance (Blitzman, 2024), the path forward requires more than policy tweaks. Ending the horrors of the pipeline demands a reckoning with the criminalization of Black and Brown childhood and a commitment to progressive principles that prioritize education and care over punishment and control.

REFERENCES

Beck, E. (2025). Built Beyond American Borders: Comparing the Construction and Maintenance of the School-to-Prison Pipeline in the United States and New Zealand. New Zealand Sociology, 40(2), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.64399/v6pqwv83

Blitzman, J. (2024). The Criminalization of Childhood and Adolescence, A Review of Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-To-Prison Pipeline: Mark R. Warren. Oxford University Press, 2022, 334 pp., (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-19-975786-2. Criminal Justice Ethics, 43(1), 122–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/0731129X.2023.2283338

Bush, M. D., & Dodson, K. D. (2024). To arrest or to serve: school resource officers’ perceptions of zero-tolerance and the school-to-prison pipeline. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 22(1), 66–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377938.2024.2324444

Cohen, A. J., & Blanchard, U. (2025). Radical Restorative Justice: Reflections on Conflict, Trauma, and Hope in Chicagoland Schools. Cardozo Law Review, 46(3), 709–765.

Sotiropoulos, K. (2024). Why We Need a Long View of Abolition to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Educational Studies, 60(5), 530–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2024.2365193